|
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
| "Women's Life and Health"
is the interview series that features active
professional women about their health, lifestyle and career. |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
| Interview
vol.4 |
Azuki Mashiba, Actress and scriptwriter
-Part1 |
|
|
|
|
|
| Azuki Mashiba |
Actress and scriptwriter from Yamaguchi Prefecture. After graduating from the Waseda University School of Letters, Arts and Sciences II, she founded Theater Company Caramel Box in 1985 together with Yutaka Narui and Masafumi Kato and participated as an actress. In 1993 she took up scriptwriting. Major works include: Yubin Haitatsu-fu no Koi and Hitomi (scripts for stage); Teruteru Ashita and Ame to Yume no Ato ni (TV screenplays); Tsuki to Kyabetsu, etc. (film screenplays); Black Flag Blues, Kaze wo Tsugu Mono, Alone Again, Shigatsu ni Nareba Kanojo wa, etc. (scripts and productions for stage); and the novel Fushigi-na Koi no Tsukurikata (Wani Books); as well as stage appearances for Theater Company Caramel Box productions, such as Sketchbook Voyager (August-September 2005), Hitomi (April-May 2004) and Sayonara Nautilus-go (July-August 1998).
* Theater Company Caramel Box website: (http://www.caramelbox.com/) |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
| Last night, I watched a DVD of your company’s 20th anniversary production, TRUTH. I was by myself, with tears streaming down my face. It’s a very sad story, isn’t it? But I was also surprised as I didn’t expect western music like that at the start with such a Japanese set (laughs). |
| All of that is original music. I wrote the lyrics of the first song. I’ve tried writing others since but it’s actually quite hard because lyrics are so unique. So now I have someone else in the production team write them. |
|
| You now write the scripts and you also act. Did you always want to be an actor? |
| It’s a bit of a long story (laughs). As a child I loved to write and wanted to be a copywriter in high school.Back then advertising jobs were getting a lot of attention thanks to the work of Shigesato Itoi and Takashi Nakahata. Anyway, I was playing music at the time (laughs). |
|
| What kind of music? |
| I played clarinet in an orchestra from elementary through to high school. At university I wanted to join the orchestra or an advertising study group, but I ended up going to Evening Division at Waseda University’s School of Letters, Arts and Sciences II and so the time of the activity didn’t fit into my schedule.Instead, I joined an “anything goes” club.We read books, played tennis, formed bands and so on.Then one day a friend of mine who acted, and who lived in the same student apartment building as I did, asked me to go see her first performance. That was December in my first year. I went along and loved it. The play had been written by Yutaka Narui (Caramel Box scriptwriter) and our star actress, Mikiko Omori, was in the lead role. It was also Masafumi Kato’s first production. It was a great performance. |
|
 |
|
| Very auspicious. |
| Looking back, yes. It was my first encounter with the theater and came just as I was realizing I wasn’t going anywhere with music.Acting I could do with my own body, with no instruments required.So I thought I would give it a go. |
|
 |
| Was it tough to begin with? |
| Yes, it was. I had only ever belonged to an orchestra, so I wasn’t used to moving my body around. I am hopeless at sports, but in this Theater 50’ circle, you really had to move!Physical training lasted about two hours and was very intense and grueling. I lost three kilos in the first month.But here I am, still acting and in a theater company I helped set up.We first intended it to be an amateur group. Narui was a high school teacher and I worked for only three months. |
|
|
| Three months? (Laughs) |
| Yes. What was I doing?! (Laughs)I joined a small advertising agency where I did clerical work, but I became really busy after we founded the company and above all I had a hard time handling it physically. But I wanted to keep acting in some way. |
|
| Perhaps you felt determined from the start that you were going to be an artist…? |
| When I first saw a play I thought, “This is it!” In fact, I almost joined the drama club in high school after reading the manga Garasu no Kamen (Glass Mask). But our drama club was too small and the captain of the club would dress up like a character in Versailles no Bara (The Rose of Versailles) when trying to lure new students into the club, shouting out her lines in a reverberating voice. Looking back it seems really fun, but at the time I just thought, “What?!” Voice training looked incredibly embarrassing, too. |
|
| And that one performance changed all that? |
| Yes, it did. It was an original work entitled Rokuban-me no Christmas (Sixth Christmas) and was inspired by the fantastical Ginga Tetsudo no Yoru (Night Train to the Stars). |
|
| What did you find interesting about it? |
| First of all, there is the start, when the music began and Mikiko Omori and another actor, Shinichi Fukumoto, who is now with the Rappa-ya company, came out and said their lines.And those lines were in perfect sync with the lyrics of the song being played.Of course I now realize they must have practiced synchronizing, but that moment gave me goose bumps!I can’t forget it-they were the lyrics to Shinji Harada’s Kaze no Muki wo Yubi de Shirabete.The perfect synchronization of the lyrics and the lines had me captivated, and the excitement, the suspense, the humor. And I had tears in my eyes at the end. |
|
 |
|
| The theatrical aspect of it must have really struck a chord with you. |
| It was a very small theater and I was sitting on the ground with my arms wrapped around my knees, which made it all the more compelling. And my friend, who normally walked around vacantly in a tracksuit, was looking so beautiful (laughs) and dignified up on stage. I thought it was wonderful! And I wanted to know more about why I felt that way. I wanted to get involved. |
|
| It really was fate. |
| Knowing someone in the club was a big factor, too, I think. I mean, I wasn’t going to be surrounded entirely by people I didn’t know. |
|
 |
| You seem to have been blessed with good friends. I heard that when you were young you were helped out by your landlord. |
| That’s right. I didn’t have the money to find a new place to live, and was in a bit of a fix, when the landlord of an old apartment of mine happened to call. She said, “Your old place is free. Want to move in?” I told her I had no money for a deposit, but she said I could pay any time. I went over and there, in this place with not a single piece of furniture, was a pile of food-bread, instant noodles (laughs). I was so grateful! |
|
|
| You don’t hear stories like that often. You obviously have a way with people. |
| Either that or I was just incredibly poor (laughs). At university, too, people were especially friendly just because I was an actor. They answered roll call for me, lent me their notes…“Don’t worry about,” they’d say. “We know you’re an actor!” (Laughs) |
|
| You had a lot of support. |
| I did. I don’t know what I’d be doing now if it wasn’t for them. |
|
| |
| 1/2 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|