ネイティブが教える英会話のジェムスクール☆Teachers☆

Pictured is a shot of me and an actress in a theater production I saw recently. This Sunday I had the pleasure of watching a Japanese play. It was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and in all Japanese. It was a nifty rendition, from my perspective anyways. I grew up with the Disney movie adaptation so I was expecting some sort of final showdown or fight. In the Disney animated movie the knight fights or squares off with the antagonist, or villain, the evil witch who tricked the princess into eating a poisoned apple.

If you’re not familiar with the story, basically a witch asks her magic mirror who the most beautiful women in the land is, and it answers that it is the princess Snow White. Jealous of Snow White’s taking first place in terms of beauty, the witch sends someone to kill Snow White. This hitman, someone who is tasked to kill someone, however, fails to do this out of a change of heart. Snow White runs away and hides in a house she stumbles upon in the woods. This is where she encounters, or meets, the titular seven dwarves. She is given chores to do and generally settles into her new home, befriending the seven inhabitants, or residents who live there (the seven dwarves). Meanwhile, the evil witch realizes that she has to take matters into her own hand, or do things herself, personally, and so she changes herself into an old, haggard wretch and sets off to Snow White’s hidden village. There the witch tricks Snow White into eating an apple she poisoned to make whoever bites it fall asleep forever. Snow White passes out and the seven dwarves care for her sleeping body. Eventually, a knight passes by the dwarves’ home and winds up getting a glimpse, or seeing, the beauty that is Snow White sleeping. He falls in love with her, learns how she was tricked into biting a poisoned apple, who was behind this scheme, or plot, to poison her, and then seeks revenge. He goes directly to the witch and he and the witch duel, or fight. The story ends well in the Disney version, as well as in the version I saw rendered for the stage.

It was an amazing experience. I sat next to a Japanese family who were avid, or big, fans of the stage director, so they would talk to me occasionally and explain a bit what was happening on the stage (since I still cannot understand Japanese). They told me that for a previous production the director made the audience member eat udon in their seats during the show! For this production of Snow White, the director made use of the entire theater space, making Snow White and the seven dwarves and the savior king move between the theater audience aisles. This reminds me of a quote from the American playwright Arthur Miller: “The theater is so endlessly fascinating because it’s so accidental. It’s so much like life.”That was an amazing experience, the stage really came alive then with this immersive technique. But the best part came when the dwarves first meet Snow White and realize that they have to give her a nickname. Guess what they did to come up with one? Each dwarf went out to the audience to ask all the kids for their opinion…and the kids were really responding and coming up with ideas! After canvassing, or surveying, for names the dwarves gathered back on stage and each dwarf gave their own suggestions, but in the end one dwarf announced a name from the audience! It was just so shocking and pleasant to see this seamless and easy room-wide interaction between the actresses and the kids in the audience. Definitely something worthy of emulation.