Performing Female Intimacy in Japan's Takarazuka Revue

Summary

Japan's Takarazuka Revue is arguably the most commercially successful all-female, theatre company in the world. Renowned for its glamour-laden staging of musicals and revues, the company's signature shows are heterosexual Western romances where women play both male and female roles. Since its audience consists almost entirely of women, Takarazuka creates a space for queer intimacy between performers and ardent female fans. This Element examines how this intimacy exhibits resistant girls' aesthetics and is expressed in the company's two-dimensional performance style. Case studies include analysis of its recent experimental show, The Poe Clan directed by Koike Shūichirō, which depicts a male homoerotic relationship, argued as a façade for a queer, kin-like relationship linking women across space and time. Resistance to the company's capitalist management is explored in works by the female director Ueda Kumiko – shows which aim to depict an anti-capitalist shared commons for female intimacy on the Takarazuka stage.