And All That Japanese: Chicago's Amra-Faye Wright Talks Tapping in Tokyo

About the author:
Chicago star Amra-Faye Wright sure does travel a lot for someone playing a cell-locked inmate. The long-running musical has taken the South African-born, platinum-haired triple-threat around the world playing Velma Kelly on Broadway, in the West End, Johannesburg and Cape Town as well as on European and U.K. tours. (Wright books flights while Velma gets booked for murder.) This summer, the musical star added another stamp to her passport when she became the first English-speaking actress to perform the show entirely in Japanese during a month-long stint in Tokyo and Hyogo. Now back on Broadway, Wright recounts the demanding process of learning and delivering Chicago in a language she’d never spoken. How’d she pull it off? Here’s a hint: She simply could not do it alone! Read the essay, then click on our link to see Amra-Faye in action.

Agent calls: “So here’s a thing! I have an offer for you to play Velma in Japan...with a Japanese cast...in Japanese...HA HAHAHA HA!” (Cue raucous laughter on both ends of the phone.)
Amra (catching breath): “I’ll do it.”

Three months before opening in Japan, I opened the script...what the f@#& was I thinking? I had no reference to Japanese. I had sung in Italian, French and German before, but Japanese? And an entire script? And still act!? That was when I realized I would also have to learn everyone else’s lines too, because how would I know when it was my turn to talk?

So I began. Two lines a day, repeating like a parrot for two hours, until my tongue and lips felt comfortable. As dancers, we rely on muscle memory, but who knew that concept extended to the muscles of the mouth? (Of course, when singing!) I was surprised to find that after the third day of summarizing, the sounds were actually beginning to stick. And that’s how I learned to play an entire show in a foreign language that looks and sounds absolutely nothing like the one I speak every day.

Fortunately, I know the Chicago script in English, because a lot of the translation had to be adapted to fit cultural and language demands. For example, “shit out of luck” translates to “luck and shit also out of person is.” For that very reason, I decided to learn only the dialogue, phonetically, before trying to tackle actually learning the language.

I arrived in Japan feeling really chuffed with myself, having memorized the entire script. Huh! Then the real work began! Every phrase had a set intonation, and I had to relearn everything, almost like a song. A half-tone up on the beginning of a word, stay there for the next syllable, then down a step for the end of the word, and so on. By the time the show opened, I felt like a racehorse trained to within an inch of my life. During the run I had to stay supremely focused even when off stage. I have observed actors mumbling their lines before entering ... and I became that actor. Stage performers tend to relax when you're being praised for a job well done, but for me, it just created more pressure to live up to my own standards. (So that’s how Ms. Streisand felt when she disappeared from live performances for 10 years?!)

Being part of a Japanese cast presented a few curve balls. Like everyone, I have my party tricks and backstage antics. And I figured when I felt comfortable enough, I would pull them out of the hat. Unfortunately for me, it all got lost in translation...especially when I showed them my piece de resistance, “the death drag” (I drag myself along the floor and it looks like I’m being dragged off…you really have to be there.) I got looks of horror that live with me still. I think that’s when they began to wonder whether their revered “Broadway” had lost its mind, sending over such a person as this. My other theory was that everyone was just dog tired from being in the theater three hours before every performance. Yes, you heard right...three hours!

But seriously, here’s what I found in Japan: a cast of beautiful people who are respectful, hard working, talented and, though you may not see it at first, passionate! I gained more than I could ever have imagined: brain cells I never knew existed, courage I wasn’t sure I had and an invaluable acting exercise. Man, if you are not sure of your intention when speaking a foreign language, forget egg on the face—try the whole freakin’ quiche!

I was warned about Japanese audiences being sedate, but on the contrary, I found them warm and receptive. That may be because we spoke Japanese. It also occurred to me that they may have been laughing at me! I am, after all, head and shoulders taller than everyone, platinum blonde and somewhat busty.

Immediately after my run in Japan, I was back at the Ambassador Theatre, doing Velma in English again. How does it differ? Well, Broadway is home! The home of Chicago, Fosse, Kander and Ebb. The show breathes here. I am tempted, at times, to break into Japanese, especially when tourists are sleeping…you know what I mean? But if [Chicago producers] Fran and Barry Weissler are reading this, I will never do that!

I have picked up a management contract for Japan, so I will be going back. For now, it’s back to the drawing board and on with the Japanese studies. Hey, if my acting career fails, the world needs translators!