Impressions of watching Tarusuke Shingaki's two-person play "Greatest Rest"

I recently attended the Saturday performance of Tarusuke Shingaki's two-person play, "Greatest Rest".

I have written down my thoughts on other two-person plays, but this was my first time seeing one live. Also, since I couldn't take both days off work, I only attended on Saturday. I know there are people who couldn't make it and will listen to the CD later (and I really want you to listen to it!), so I will write this without spoilers.

In this play, Mr. Shingaki performs a reading play with one other person, and it's an incredible production where not only do the endings change between the day and night performances, but the cast also swaps between Saturday and Sunday. In other words, all four performances are completely different.

This time, the guest was Daisuke Hirakawa. Reading the pamphlet, it seems they have been friends since they both started their voice acting careers.The pamphlet is a must-buy!!!!For fans, the photos of the two of them, their comments, and the self-introduction page at the end in a profile-book style are all perfect.

The story is set in modern-day Japan and follows two young people of today.

Wow, they're covering this, oh, they're doing it like that, eh! That's interesting, I've seen that too, but it's interesting, isn't it 🎞️📽️

Various emotions welled up, and I ended up crying at the end. (Actually, I'm writing this after watching the day performance.)

The protagonist is Togo Satori. Togo, as he is called, lost his mother in a plane crash and is a boy who seems to have trouble expressing his emotions.
In contrast, Harukaze Tsukiyama is a bright boy who feels like he could be anywhere, but in reality, isn't really around that much. He is called Haru because he dislikes having a girl-like name.

In the Saturday performance I saw, Mr. Shingaki played Togo and Mr. Hirakawa played Haru.

About their acting.
Mr. Shingaki's Togo was a Togo that I felt Mr. Okitsu would think Mr. Shingaki is good at playing. Sorry for imagining that on my own. During the pre-show event, Mr. Okitsu said something like, "If you want to have someone play an innocent and shy boy, he's the one," so 😅 I was moved to tears by Mr. Shingaki's performance as Togo... His acting through his facial expressions when he shows his emotions on stage is truly wonderful. By the way, when he was sitting and drinking water while not acting, I was excited to see him swish it around in his mouth to prepare, and to see him put his index finger into the collar of his white shirt to pull and adjust it. After a scene where his emotions were high, he would also turn to the side, wipe the corners of his eyes with his fingertips, and stand at the microphone stand.

Mr. Hirakawa's Haru was a boy who was mischievous, kind, and a little bit cocky, which was cute. And since Mr. Hirakawa would smile whenever Haru smiled, that full smile of Mr. Hirakawa's is burned into my mind and won't leave. Even when he sat in his chair after his lines were finished, there were many moments where Haru's smile remained, and it was truly... demonic!!!
Haru's character uses very modern dialogue, so I thought it was amazing how he could naturally and easily speak in the way kids today talk, giving it a fresh feel.
And this the way they switched between other characters, which is natural in this two-person play, was also very interesting. (After watching the night performance, I couldn't even think about that. I died from how precious it was.)

Since the stage composition won't be recorded on video, I'll write it down as a memo (please skip this if you absolutely hate spoilers).
There are two main microphone stands on stage right and left, Mr. furani's piano seat in the back left, a slightly lower step, and two more microphone stands in the back. (I didn't see Thinking Blue, but I wonder if it was like that.) And on the right, there is a table set with a desktop microphone, a laptop, and a mug.

The stage set had five white boxes hanging in the air, and it was a very nice atmosphere as they changed colors with the lighting. (The boxes were covered with paper that let a little light through, like shoji screens.) This linked to the content in the preface of the pamphlet, and I felt it deepened the meaning of the work.

And!! I just finished watching the night performance!!!
The story branch in the night performance was that, eh, it was different from what I expected, but I cried normally. My heart is full.

My heart is so warm that I don't even feel cold even though I left with my coat still in my bag.

I recently started writing on this Note, and I've been having a lot of fun interacting with people who have similar hobbies on X, but I feel like I received something wonderful by encountering this work.
I am grateful to everyone who found this article.
I released my wild feelings on Privatter, but it's long. ↓↓↓

I will probably add my impressions here while getting excited about the character switching again when the CD arrives in February or March and I listen to the Sunday version.
The CD arrived safely and I enjoyed the Sunday version too!!
Here are my impressions of the character switching ↓↓↓

I pray that this wonderful project will continue for a long time.

Finally, the pre-show before the main story had the roles swapped between day and night, so it was fun to experience the cast change as well. I think the content is probably the same for Sunday, but please refrain from reading if you are going to see it, as it will be spoilers.

A mix of the content and my impressions of the pre-show.
During the day, Mr. Shingaki is recording a free talk for some job as himself. When asked about his favorite line, he answers by coolly saying the "precautions often heard at theaters (the very long ones like 'please turn off electronic devices when listening')" like a hero's special move name. After that, he is asked for an autograph, but the staff tells him it's fine because they just wrote one earlier, so he finishes work and is on his way home (this was already foreshadowing for later), when he sees a nostalgic barbershop he used to go to and enters.
The barber is Mr. Hirakawa, and he speaks with great energy and is very high-tension. Since he says he used to work at an izakaya, he asks if he wants an appetizer at every opportunity. When asked to just cut the ends, he says he'll cut too much if you're not a regular (what does that mean?!), and tells him to choose from a catalog.
When Mr. Shingaki says he feels hesitant because he's a handsome guy, Mr. Hirakawa says it's okay because he blacked out the eyes. The audience laughs at the thought of everyone looking like criminals (though they were already laughing because it was funny until then).
Then, Mr. Hirakawa suddenly asks, "Are you a voice actor?" He says his daughter likes him, and even though she's not here today because of an event, he starts to guess. He pretends to remember something and suddenly says his birthplace, Mouse Promotion, and the reason for his given name as if he were reading information straight from Wikipedia, so Mr. Shingaki retorts that it's shallow and thin information.
Then, he takes a colored paper from the sleeve to ask for an autograph for his daughter. When he goes to call out to the sleeve like "Mom!!", I heard laughter, whether it was from the sleeve or from furani-san.
He says the autograph can be small, but asks him to draw his favorite animal, and while Mr. Shingaki is drawing, he asks for music because it's boring, and fun music is played on the piano. Mr. Hirakawa was in a good mood, shaking his hips and saying "Vibes, vibes~" with high tension.
When he finally shows what he drew, Mr. Shingaki drew a penguin from Sumikko Gurashi. It was incredibly good. He seemed to be telling Mr. Hirakawa, who didn't seem to know Sumikko Gurashi, that it's a character for children that really touches the hearts of adults. I work in a job teaching children, and the kids who like Sumikko Gurashi are generally modest and good children, so I felt Mr. Shingaki's humanity and felt warmed ☺️
Then, just as he is about to be returned it because he finally drew it, he says he hasn't cut his hair yet, so he decides to cut it. He starts cutting (with SE snip-snip sounds) while clearly feeling anxious, but Mr. Shingaki panics because there is no mirror. Mr. Hirakawa calmly says he doesn't need one since he's the one cutting, and Mr. Shingaki gets angry saying he does need one, and the audience bursts into laughter at Mr. Hirakawa playing the fool saying he's a strange person.
It was good when he cut it, but Mr. Hirakawa says it's because of the skills he trained at the izakaya, so Mr. Shingaki immediately retorts. That's how the story ends, and Mr. Hirakawa says he's looking forward to what he'll have him write on the colored paper next time, and I think Mr. Shingaki said he was worried because there are three more times left.

Then, at night, it was Mr. Hirakawa's turn, and they did the same flow with the roles reversed. Mr. Hirakawa's favorite line was the grandpa version. Hmm, as expected of his phrasing. It's funny just from the phrasing.
Then, the barber Mr. Shingaki who appeared was, surprisingly, a grandpa barber! (Before his lines, he deliberately made sounds in his mouth, like someone who makes sounds with their dentures.) He proceeds with the setting that he is a grandpa who used to run an izakaya. Just like in the day performance, he shows a catalog and the black lines on the eyes are the same, but the timing created by the two is so funny that the audience laughs. If anything, when Mr. Hirakawa says the cover has a very old year written on it (did he say 1978?), Mr. Shingaki's casual reply like "It's okay, it's okay, (history) goes around" was really funny.
Mr. Shingaki gets confused and says his grandchild instead of daughter, or is vague about it, perhaps because he's a grandpa. When he said his daughter went to an event, the venue laughed at the meta-comment that Mr. Hirakawa had to overlap because he made the night pre-show lines the grandpa version, so he didn't know what to do. (But it didn't feel like an overlap at all because it was completely different.)
When guessing if he's a voice actor, the lines were different from the day, and after looking up at the heavens and doing it exaggeratedly as if something had descended, he says, "Are you by any chance..." and says the name, but the impact after that was so great that I forgot the first person 🤣 If anyone else has written their impressions later, I will use them as a reference. Mr. Hirakawa also said, "Everyone is Daisuke," (lol).
For the autograph request, Mr. Hirakawa likes cats, so he drew a picture of a cat in a loaf pose, which he thought was the cutest pose? He's good at it. When he goes to get the colored paper from the sleeve, he hits the paper with a felt-tip pen on the way back, so Mr. Hirakawa tells him the paper will get damaged. It seems this really remained (lol).
When asked for enka music while drawing, furani-san immediately started playing in an enka style, and Mr. Shingaki, whose vibes were up, started humming in an enka style, and there was applause in the venue. When I thought it was still going, Mr. Hirakawa said he wanted to watch a little more. He ended it with an ad-lib singing a phrase like "I love you".
Mr. Shingaki plays the fool again with a confused relationship, saying he'll give the autograph he received to his granddaughter's husband.
It was cute how Mr. Hirakawa panicked in the reversed role when cutting hair. He said contradictory lines like "I'll cut just a little~ I'll cut it all off~" with the grandpa setting, so Mr. Hirakawa's facial reaction while listening to that was also perfectly funny.
I had seen Mr. Hirakawa playing the fool first, but it was also fun to see Mr. Shingaki playing the fool, and I wanted to see tomorrow's pre-show too 😭 It looks like we'll be able to see an even more amazing exchange of ad-libs tomorrow! I'm looking forward to the impressions of those who are going!

Two-person play "Greatest Rest"
Organizer/Cast: Tarusuke Shingaki
Cast: Daisuke Hirakawa

Script: Yumas
Director: Daikei Ezaki

Performance: furani
To everyone involved, thank you so much!!

There was a photo on furani-san's post where you can see the stage set 😭😭😭

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Impressions of "Thinking Blue and the Eve Festival"