Some of Japan’s emperors have certainly been known for their futon-hopping with dozens of concubines provided to the imperial court. But having six wives and changing the country’s religion to do so?
The musical tale of Henry VIII’s wives will make its own history with the Japanese version of Six due to begin what is thought to be the first West End residency for a foreign-language musical.
A cast of Japanese queens has arrived in London for the run at the Vaudeville Theatre following the global success of Six, which began life in a hotel conference room during the Edinburgh Fringe.
The musical has been “really revolutionary” in Japan, its producer said
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The producer, Hiroko Murata, who has assembled the Japanese Anne Boleyns and Jane Seymours, said that while she had known nothing of Henry VIII, her country had fallen in love with the queens.
She said Japan had discovered Six, with its reframing of Tudor history and lashings of female empowerment, through the musical’s cast recording, which was released in the years after its breakthrough in Edinburgh in 2017.
“This musical is really revolutionary in Japan,” Murata said. “And it is really revolutionising female empowerment.”
Murata, of Umeda Arts Theatre, said the musical’s Japanese run had sold out in Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya earlier this year. “The audience know this music very well,” she said. “The message is strong and the music is catchy.”
The show’s creators found the Japanese version was “completely surreal and really amazing”
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Kenny Wax — one of the producers who helped take the English-language version of Six from Edinburgh to the West End, Broadway and beyond — said he had been “blown away” by the Japanese version and the “vigour” of its cast. Ten screens for translations will be provided at the Vaudeville — usually home to the English-language original — so audiences can understand the lyrics.
The musical’s creators, Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss, said they had been mesmerised by the Japanese version, and that audiences at preview shows had come specially dressed in costumes.
“It was completely surreal and completely amazing,” Moss said. “The biggest surprise was how funny I was finding it, even though I don’t speak the language at all. It is a very creative interpretation. We made sure each line had the same spirit as in English, but not exactly word-for-word.”
The Japanese Six, which opens on November 4, follows the sold-out sumo wrestling events at the Royal Albert Hall and another extension of the West End run of My Neighbour Totoro, the Royal Shakespeare Company’s adaptation of the Studio Ghibli fantasy film, this time until August.
Many of the performers had never left Japan before coming to London for the show
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Wax said the Six “cultural exchange” came at a timely moment. “One of the messages of Six is clearly female empowerment, and it’s been really interesting [the Japanese version comes] in a week where we’ve got the first Japanese female prime minister,” he said. “This is a show that very much empowers women to use their voices to tell stories.”
The new prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, comes from the same town as Murata, Wax said.
A Korean-language version of Six has been commissioned while a Spanish version is due next year. The musical has also been performed by English-language companies in China, Singapore, Germany, Switzerland and elsewhere.
“It’s really gone all over the world and it is nothing we could have ever imagined or expected,” Wax said. “What the show has done in schools to encourage the telling of history in a modern way is really exciting . We are a movement.”
Many of the Japanese queens — two sets of Aragons, Boleyns, Seymours, Cleves, Howards and Parrs — had never left their home country before, Wax said.
“It gives them a chance to perform in their own language on this stage in this beautiful theatre — the first ever foreign-language production of a musical in the actual theatre where the show is being performed in English is certainly one of a kind.”