KenさんのShall We Dance?

Japan Times On Sundayで渡辺謙さんのミュージカルデビューについて記事にされていました。残念ながら英語力が足を引っ張っているというのです。Japan Timesは閲覧回数制限があるので、Kyodo Newsをシンガポールのサイトでご紹介。

Actor Watanabe slammed for poor English in New York musical reviews
PUBLISHED: 4:01 PM, APRIL 18, 2015
NEW YORK — Japanese actor Ken Watanabe received scathing remarks about his English skills, although not his acting, as critics reviewed on Friday (April 17) the opening of the Broadway musical The King and I in New York.

“His diction is not always coherent,” The New York Times said, while The New York Post called Watanabe’s English “rough”. “His solo turn, ‘A Puzzlement’, is just that — a garbled mess,” it added.
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The Daily News said the 55-year-old actor’s English “is a work in progress, so sometimes his lines and lyrics are blurry”.

The Wall Street Journal said: “His thick Japanese accent is something of a trial in ‘A Puzzlement’, but that’s the only thing slightly wrong with him.”

映画は撮り直しがききますが、ミュージカルはそうもいきませんから難しいのかもしれませんね。

Watanabe spoke about the challenge his English skills face in a musical the day after the first preview show.

“Movies are more forgiving of mistakes, whereas if you make too many mistakes in a musical, you won’t be able to reach the audience,” he told a press conference on March 13.
KYODO NEWS

Kyodoでも触れていたNew York Postの記事です。

How Ken Watanabe polished the King’s speech for ‘King and I’
By Michael Riedel
April 7, 2015

Cast members were panicky because they could hear those blue-haired ladies who make up much of the Lincoln Center audience saying things like “What’s he saying?,” “What kind of an accent is that?” and, my favorite, “Speak English — like Yul Brynner!”

Apparently, Watanabe was nervous about the language problem as well. And so he decreed about three weeks ago — after all, he is the King — that everybody on the show address him in English at all times.

‪Yul BrynnerとDeborah Kerr ‬のKing and IがYouTubeにありました。



まだ始まったばかりですから、今後の挽回を期待してたいです！！

“He has spent every day since previews speaking in English and in English only,” a source says. “Even at home, I think.”

Well, the Rosetta Stone crash course paid off. Watanabe can now be understood, for the most part, by everybody in the theater. The little old ladies have settled down. They are no longer puzzled by “A Puzzlement.”