Chiritotechin (aka that Rakugo show)

[mbarker]

Let's see. Catching up - Saturday?

The show, with flashbacks, was interlaced with the teacher dying. And then we got a visit to hell - and it looks like kind of a nice place to visit!

This part of the show was mostly the four students doing the parts of Jigoku Bakkai (sites of hell). Each has a flashback to the teacher instructing them in the hospital. So for example, Shiso remembers the teacher telling him to be more foolish, not so serious - and starts overacting, and gets roars of laughter from the audience. And in the background, over at the hospital, the teacher is smiling and dying.

One very cute bit - the bar owner is serving drinks, and thinks he's misplaced a bottle of sake. Then in the next scene, the ghost of the teacher visits Kiyomi and tells her to hurry up and join the rest of the students. And he's carrying a bottle of sake.

The show ended with a visit to hell. Seems that they are having a special show by Sojyaku, with his wife playing shamisen. Grandpa is really looking forward to it. And we see the teacher with a dandelion in his teeth, smiling at that rakugo stage under the spotlight.

End with flash scenes of upcoming bits, including a new student, Kiyomi checking his cleaning, and A-ko accusing her of lying.

One part that I really appreciated about this show was the mixture of laughter and tears - reminded me of the smiling and crying faces of drama.

Stay tuned! About 6 more weeks to go.

Comments

An alternate approach

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

I pondered a bit whether they could have had the teacher die at the start of the show, and then interlaced bits of him in hell with the show. I suspect it might have worked, but it would mean interrupting each student performance with two cuts to different scenes - one memory of the teacher, one visit to hell - which might be too complicated. Ah, well, what they did was effective.