Constructed Bodies, Perfected Romance:

Performing Gender Onstage at Japan’s Takarazuka Revue

Elizabeth DennyAMES 493

April 13, 2014

What is the Takarazuka Revue?• All-female theater troupe, founded in 1914• Perform original musicals and dance revues

and translated Western ones• Women play all roles; specialize in

performing either male or female characters• Audience is mostly married women• Most popular theatrical institution in Japan

(2.5 million viewers per year); very strong fan culture

My Research• What is Takarazuka’s meaning to its audience? How does the theater interact with conceptions

of gender in Japanese society?– Performance of gender onstage:1. How does Takarazuka define masculinity

and femininity?2. How are those definitions interpreted by

the audience and performers?3. What can we learn from those definitions

about the people who attend Takarazuka and the society in which it is situated?

Clip: The Great Gatsby(グレート・ギャツビー), 2008

http://youtu.be/q2XTJyxBjHY?t=10s

Takarasiennes

• Player of male roles: otokoyaku

• Player of female roles: musumeyaku

• Once assigned an onstage gender, virtually never switch

• Carry onstage gender into (public) offstage life

musumeyaku

otokoyaku

otokoyaku

musumeyaku

otokoyaku

musumeyaku

Text: Takarazuka as Educator

• Performing as men teaches actresses to better appreciate husbands and sons

• Musicals’ narratives glorify heterosexual order of Japanese society

Subtext: Takarazuka as Escape

• Otokoyaku can negotiate both gender realms simultaneously

• Takarazuka man is better than a real man because he is embodied by a woman

Performing Gender• Sex and gender are not

synonyms• Takarazuka’s men and

women are theatrical constructions that “no longer relate to ‘real’ gender in mainstream society”(Stickland 2008: 138)

• Use of fixed theatrical forms called kata to communicate gender

Physical Kata

• Tall• Pants• Dark-skinned

(orange)• Short hair• Legs and

arms held out from body

• Very low voice

• Short• Dress• Pale-skinned

(pink)• Long hair• Limbs are

closed, movement is limited

• Very high voice

Feminine Masculine

Physical Kata

Narrative Kata

• Main characters

• Range of morality

• Active (instigators)

• Dynamic• Erotic• Fully realized

individuals

• Supporting roles

• Morally good• Passive

(recipients)• Static• Asexual• Supportive

foils

Feminine Masculine

Narrative Kata

Reconciling the Text and Subtext Onstage

Text:• Women are not valued as equals to men

(no stories with female leads)• Independence, dynamism, sexuality and

confidence are exclusively male qualities • Male/female binary is upheld even when

gender-bending

Reconciling the Text and Subtext Onstage

Subtext:• Women play male roles onstage and off• Men/masculinity are re-imagined to appeal

to women• Stories are staged in a closed

female environment• Androgyny is facilitated by clear binaries

Conclusion• Takarazuka’s popularity and appeal to women

gives its performances weight beyond the stage

• Performances disavow the importance of femininity and glorify maleness

• HOWEVER, performance of masculine ideal by female bodies also introduces subversive readings of onstage actions

• Stage is the site of complex, ambivalent gendered interactions that both support and undermine patriarchal structures