#kazumaaaa

Company Guide intervews:
Suga Kenta
Shiota Kouhei

Scans via @engekihaikyuuhere.

I always thought that Ennoshita was a very difficult role. It’s not as if there’s anywhere he particularly excels or outstrips the others on the team, but it’s also not as if he’s a total failure. Furthermore, for shoen, in terms of the story he only had a limited number of appearances in the source material, and he was still an unknown quantity. Such a role places a heavy burden on the actor. If you have a role whose portrayal and lines are closely tied to the main story, then it’s easier to generate emotion from your acting, and it’s easy to get the audience to take that in. Plus, this is obvious, but in a manga, when characters don’t appear [in a panel], they don’t appear. But on stage, it’s plainly “if they exist, they’re there.” – so even if the character is in the background, the actor has to constantly figure out the point of that character’s presence. This was the first time I’d played that type of role and… I started from the understanding that playing a character like Ennoshita who supported everyone around him would be valuable material, a challenge, for me.

When rehearsal started, it felt like the audition just kept going. (laughter) That was because I thought, “If this series continues, and I don’t do a good job of establishing a role for Ennoshita, they might not keep the character in the show.” He may be an integral part of Haikyuu!!, but in the process of adapting something for the stage abridgements might occur depending on the circumstances… In reality, there are productions where characters are cut from the stage adaptation depending on how it’s being made, looking at things objectively. So first, in shoen, in that single work, I tried to play Ennoshita in such a way that he was an indispensable piece of what made the play engaging, to have the audience think, “Now this is Karasuno, with Ennoshita and everything.” …Mmhm, I really struggled with that.

To be honest, at the beginning of shoen when Worry-san first said, “We’re all part of the Haikyuu theater troupe,” it didn’t really click for me. But when we actually finished creating the first work together, I got it, overwhelmingly. The whole process of creation was an experience that broke down the fences between us as young actors. Throwing ourselves with fervor into the creation of a single work. All of our individual strengths were necessary for that, and as we portrayed [the story] together, in a variety of ways aside from the main roles, we all became one whole – As a result, we were able to break through fixed ideas about “this is what theater is” or “this is what 2.5D is” and try for a type of entertainment unique to our generation. The fact that we got so far as to have our work cited as an example of a new genre of modern theater gave us all confidence. Furthermore, it’s because we were entrusted with so much that we understand and trust each other. I feel like the more responsibility we had, the more our mental strength to think, “We can make this” was forged.

The show I would recommend is… all of them. (laughter) Shoenandsaien specialized in the drama of Karasuno coming together, and “Karasuno, Revival!” had a show upgrade, getting more colorful as the participating schools increased… And for each work, the concept is different, and each ends up the best expression of Haikyuu stage to portray that particular story at that time. So I want people to watch and contrast each work and experience the whole production in its entirety.

The Haikyuu theater troupe is a special place, where we’re tested as actors and as creators. There are many things we couldn’t do anywhere else! Until the first curtain goes hope, we’re really worried, and every time the stage itself is like a match… I think that’s great, too. Karasuno’s sense of unity is strong. Our degree of trust grows by leaps and bounds. The more we accept each other, we say what we want to say, we clash, we don’t back down… (laughter) After this… I want to stay here as Ennoshita for as long as these productions continue. I’ll do my best.