Eisuke Sasai: Moved by watching 'A Streetcar Named Desire'.

I watched the play 'A Streetcar Named Desire' at the Kintetsu Art Museum.

It was my first time at the Kintetsu Art Museum, which features a U-shaped or C-shaped seating arrangement with the stage in the center.

'A Streetcar Named Desire' is a play by Tennessee Williams, and after all, it is synonymous with the 1951 film starring Marlon Brando. Brando had been playing Stanley Kowalski since the 1947 premiere, making him the original Stanley, and his performance in the film version was highly acclaimed.
He was a favorite of Tennessee Williams and performed with the playwright's blessing.

However, Jessica Tandy, who played the original Blanche, didn't have great chemistry with Brando. In the film version, Vivien Leigh was perfectly cast, delivering a morbidly brilliant performance as the widowed, seemingly fragile lady, and their acting became a landmark in film history.

In this production, Eisuke Sasai plays Blanche. This is his fourth time. The role of Blanche was a long-held dream of Sasai's since his youth, and it almost happened in the 90s, but Tennessee Williams' relatives refused permission, saying a man shouldn't play Blanche. He performed an 'ultra-C' maneuver by having a new play written for him to perform instead.

So, about that Blanche role. He played it in 2001, 2003, and 2007, and this is his first time in 19 years, in 2026.

Well, 'A Streetcar Named Desire' is a famous story, soI can't be bothered to write out the story, so please look it up on Wikipediabut there are four main characters: the protagonist Blanche, her sister Stella, Stella's husband Stanley, and his friend Mitch, who falls in love with Blanche.

The setting is New Orleans, a run-down, dirty downtown area. Blanche, a lady from a formerly prestigious family, arrives here relying on her sister. Her sister lives in this city with Stanley, a crude, vulgar man who is like a 'Giant' (from Doraemon).

So, it's a story about a lady in the slums, and Blanche's pretentious attitude doesn't sit well with Stanley. It's the same for Blanche, who inwardly thinks of him as a vulgar, dirty pig. It's not a story where the two fall in love (they are married, after all), but rather like a fuse being lit toward destruction, with everyone waiting for the explosion.

Basically, it became a hot topic because it depicted many taboos related to sexuality in the 1940s, but nowadays, it's not that provocative.

Now, about Eisuke Sasai's Blanche. Sasai is an 'onnagata' (a male actor who plays female roles), so it's a world of 'mitate' (representation), but every gesture and every vocal inflection truly looks feminine. The expressions are the same, and perhaps thanks to the makeup, the way his face is structured also looks feminine.

Blanche wears a white dress at the end when she is sent to the facility, and it is incredibly beautiful. That white dress. There was a standing ovation at the curtain call, and even then, he was elegant, and because he has good posture and a slender frame, he looked like a very beautiful silhouette. His performance gradually becomes filled with madness, and even when he is carried 'princess-style' midway through, he looks very light. He looks like a woman.

Stanley was played by Tetsuji Tanaka. Tanaka is 60 years old, but he doesn't look it at all. It wasn't like he had a glinting violence trapped in a physical cage, but rather a slightly withered sex appeal, and as expected, when Blanche and Stanley appear, the scene tightens up.

The film version doesn't have any gags, but this production had many jokes in the dialogue. Since they are all talented actors, the exchange of lines was pleasant to the ear. Blanche has many theatrical lines, and Sasai's ability to give them physical weight was amazing, and Tanaka's grounded performance as Stanley, which 'earth-bounds' the floating Blanche, was also excellent.

Stella, played by Itsumi Matsuoka, was also very good. She is the 'nun' from 'The Floorplan', and since she plays a role that stands on both sides, she is the character closest to the audience's perspective. She perfectly embodied the character of a woman who, while being Blanche's sister, lives strongly in the downtown area.

And Mitch, played by Keisuke Sakamoto. He was great. I have a strong image of Karl Malden as Mitch, so the earnest, good-natured Mitch left a strong impression. He perfectly played the role of a man with a virginal mindset who despairs upon learning that the woman he thought was a pure rose was actually quite the player. Well, I don't know if he was a virgin.

Speaking of Karl Malden, he often co-starred with Brando, like in 'On the Waterfront'. In Brando's directorial work 'One-Eyed Jacks', he played a friend who betrays Brando—a total scumbag—but in this play, it felt like Karl Malden was occasionally floating around. Well, that doesn't make sense. 'One-Eyed Jacks' was originally supposed to be directed by Stanley Kubrick, but he stepped down, and Brando took over, exceeding the budget. It's also famous as a Western that features the ocean.

The art direction was also wonderful. The emotional expressions were represented by the cast moving silently around the stage, and the atmosphere of the stage changed brilliantly with just the lighting.

Sasai has written in his books that his ideal is to become a woman in a state of nothingness, that costumes and such are unnecessary—that is the final form. Well, it's not like Frieza, but I think the stage is all about 'mitate', and that also applies to Noh.

Last night, on Akira Ikegami's 'Time-Traveling TV', the sixth Onoe Kikugoro's 'Kagamijishi' was shown. Denchu Hirakushi visited him many times to create a wood carving, making multiple carvings from a nude state to grasp the physique before creating the actual 'Kagamijishi'. It's an episode that has been rubbed raw and aired many times on 'Kaiun! Nandemo Kanteidan', but the photo of the sixth, this onnagata, is a beautiful grandfather. Is it a matter of having a feminine scent, or is it a matter of presence?

That is, well, the real woman, Itsumi Matsuoka who played Stella, was very charming, and her radiance as a woman was bursting on stage, but I thought that Sasai has cultivated a womanhood that is more than physical—a womanhood as an essence—over half a century, and that might be appearing in his beautiful features and the way he walks as he goes up the stairs next to the audience seats at the end.

It was a very wonderful stage, and although it was unfortunately raining, the stage was a dream.