30 June 2016 @ 10:43 am
2016.06.27 Love Letters  
I went and watched Tomo's day one only stage on Monday! I thought I had a front row ticket (cos my ticket said Row A) but turns out I was in the forth row -__- I was a little pissed but quickly got over it.

loveletters2016

I knew nothing going in except that it was possibly a romance stage where love letters play a big part (anyone would assume this just going by the title right?).

I was very surprised to see when they walked out with books in their hand but it clicked straight away; they were gunna read to us love letters. Turns out the book was just ONE story made up a hundreds of these letters.


loveletters2016seat



The story follows Andy and Marisa who both meet when (I wanna say) teenagers but quickly have to go to different high schools or universities. At first they agreed to date and quickly tell each other they love each other. Naturally in the love letters they tell each other what's going on, how school is etc. Now and again they ask if each other is going to certain friend events and/or if they're doing anything for christmas and then we hear the aftermath of those events in the letters also.

The first half of the play follows these character right up to their early twenties and while they both 'loved' each other in the beginning and their family's are friends with each other, due to them always being apart, and Marisa always being a complete stupid bitch like kissing other people at parties and complaining about everything, Marisa turns around tells Andy she doesn't love him, he is just Andy, her close friend.

The second half is a lot more fast paced, we see the character go through their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s and hear about them getting married and having kids with other people, their parents passing away and their careers (Andy becomes extremely famous in the world of law while Marisa learns in her old age how much of a bitch she was to Andy and wants him as a lover and starts to fall into depression). The story ends with a massive hit when Andy is the last to write a letter and it's to Marisa; who had killed herself, and he talks about how all this time spent with other people and drama was a complete waste of time because at the end of the day, even though 40 years later after their first meeting, she clearly still loved him and he clearly still loves her. And we're left with Tomo/Andy weeping this love letter out, asking her to come back, to do it all over, cos all they ever needed was each other.


【インタビュー】柳下大&イモトアヤコで朗読劇「ラヴ・レターズ」!ノープランな2人の化学反応は?

Now for the technicals!!!

Tomo did absolutely fantastic! And I wouldn't have expected any less!. He was so expressive and his facial expressions are perfect! And he reacted to everything Marisa wrote to him. When she was being a bitch he'd pull a face, when she turned around and was like 'I don't love you! You're just my close friend Andy!' and he put his book down and starred out into the audience in disbelief, and when he was speaking passionately his hand moved with his feelings. I seriously cannot praise his performance enough in this <3

He really put his all in even though he was reading from a book and was sat down the entire time. The fact he could just do that and pull such expressions and be so into it and have such realistic reactions to things that happened in the story. Just wow...
Also, hearing his voice for two solid hours was heaven!!

The actress however just looked bored and sounded so whiny, though that could've been her character. But I felt she wasn't into it at all. She just kinda sat there and complained the entire time. She never reacted to what Andy was telling her in the letters, she never had any other facial expression besides a straight face or annoyance and her voice wasn't varied either. Tomo was shouting, laughing, high tone, low tone, angry tone etc. she just kept this same tone the entire time. It was rather bother to hear/see her performance.
She was just reading outloud in my opinion.


【インタビュー】柳下大&イモトアヤコで朗読劇「ラヴ・レターズ」!ノープランな2人の化学反応は?

Little extra: Tomo is sat on my side and looks directly my way at one point but obviously with the lights and all he probably didn't but I couldn't stop my heart from racing during that one long moment...

Also at the end when the lights came back up Tomo was just putting his handerchief back in his pocket cos obvs he had to cry and break all out hearts at the end xD

This was not what I expected but I enjoyed it so much! And I dreaded seeing the pages get turned cos that meant we were closer and closer to the end of it! But by god why Andy still loved that moany, whiny bitch after forty years I have no fecking idea xD

Also when they left to go off stage, Tomo offered his hand out to her like a gentlemen and she took it and they walked off. Then they walked by on and walked off after Tomo offered her arm for her to link up with. And then in the final and third round of applause she offered her arm to him and he took it xD Everyone was laughing xD so cute!


--

That's my review! Hope you enjoyed it!! There are a few cute interviews floating about so if at some point in my life time I have chance, I will translate them xD