Looking at the synopsis, there are similarities, but also very significant differences, not least that so far as I can see they hero(ine) wasn’t actually sick. If I’m not mistaken, Kurosawa tended to be quite open on his western influences, so I’d be surprised if it was an influence and had been overlooked.
]]>Is it possible that film was shown in Tokyo and that Kurosawa saw it?
Does anyone have any thoughts?
]]>Should also increase interest in AK, so good all around.
]]>Interesting to see that Masachika Ichimura is recovering from stomach cancer, so I’d imagine he has quite a personal stake in the performance.
]]>Double casting refers to two actors preparing for the same role and taking turns playing it. It’s quite typical in bigger musical productions, as singing from one night to another, especially if there are some matinee performances in between, can be quite tough. So, there’s just one production.
In some productions you actually still have both actors on stage, but alternating between two roles — one night in a more demanding role, another night resting in a less central one. And of course, sometimes it is done for artistic reasons. Although it wasn’t a musical, when Danny Boyle directed Frankenstein for the National Theatre in London some years back, Jonny Lee Miller and Benedict Cumberbatch alternated in the lead roles: one night you had Miller as the monster and Cumberbatch as the scientist, another night it was reversed. It was quite interesting to see both versions, as the two actors have a very different physicality to their acting, and I thought it really affected the story.
As I understand it, and this comes from all sorts of bits and pieces that I was able to find online, the male leads in the Ikiru adaptation will be alternating from one night to another (and it’s actually not the first time that Ichimura and Kaga have shared a role this way), while the female leads will in fact tackle two roles, alternating between Toyo and the less central role of Watanabe’s daughter-in-law Kazue, and therefore appear every night. But I’m not a hundred percent sure about this.
]]>Is double casting usual for something like this? I assumed when I first read it that the actors would have on-stage alter-ego’s, or does it just mean there will be two touring versions?
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