サウンド・オブ・ミュージック / The Sound of Music (1975)

As they say on Wikipedia:

I only found out relatively recently that Hirata acted for the stage as well as the screen, but I haven't paid much attention to the list I found of performances he took part in, because I figured since stage shows are so ephemeral and everything happened such a long time ago, there would be no visual record of any of it. But something did catch my eye: The Sound of Music? Like, von Trapps, lonely goatherd, the hills are alive, all that? I thought, "oh I NEED to find out more about this immediately."

As it turns out, there's not much to be found. There's hardly any information about it on the internet, and certainly no videos (but we kind of have pictures, as you'll see). All I know about this performance is that it ran from July 5th to July 30th, 1975, at the Toho-owned Imperial Theater in Tokyo (also known as the Teigeki). The translation was done by Sumiko Takeuchi and Kotaro Taki, and the play was directed by Sadao Hirobe. The rest of the cast was Kaoru Yodo (as Maria), Tetsuro Sagawa (as Captain von Trapp), Yuki Okazaki, Tamaki Sawa, Asao Koike(!), Kimiko Jō, et al. Hirata plays von Schreiber, the German Navy admiral who attempts to summon Georg von Trapp to his new post in Bremmerhavn. In the 1965 film with Julie Andrews, von Schreiber is mentioned, but not seen; in stage shows, as far as I know, he has one scene where he comes to the von Trapps' mansion to ask why Georg hasn't shown up to his post. He does not sing, unfortunately. I watched the 1965 film in preparation for this post, and I think he would have made a GREAT Captain von Trapp, but that's another conversation for another time.

I did extensive internet scouring for any record of this performance at all, and as I said, I didn't find a whole lot, but I did find an online listing at an antiquarian bookseller in Tokyo for some kind of booklet related to this specific show. The listing had no pictures, and I couldn't find any from other sources, so I really had no idea what it was exactly.

So I did what any reasonable person would do: I bought it, sight unseen, from Japan. I think this is the only time in my life I've ever bought anything online without seeing pictures of it. It just arrived this afternoon, and oh boy. Boy oh boy.

I did not expect any actual photos from the performance, because I figured that a booklet like this would be something that was published prior to the show, for people to familiarize themselves with the lyrics and the story and whatnot. That's pretty much what it is, but there are pictures of the cast in full costume...

Don't mind the latex gloves. I was really sweaty.

...as well as short interviews with the cast about the musical.

I've saved the best for last. The other thing the listing said about this booklet that really cinched my decision to buy it was that it included a ticket stub. I know I sound like a freak and a half here, but it's doing my head in to think that somebody probably had this on them while watching the actual show almost 50 years ago.

The Teigeki has been renovated since 1975 (and is due to be renovated again next year), so the seating chart in the book probably doesn't resemble what the theater looks like now (at least I don't think it does - this may shock you, but I have never been to the Imperial Theater). Whoever owned this book saw the show on July 22nd, and they had pretty decent seats, I think.

So yeah this is basically my favorite thing that I own. I don't want to break the spine to stick it in my scanner, but I'll upload more photos taken with my phone if anybody really wants to see them.