#82【ダウ蓮見×松尾スズキ】ウケないままお話が突き進んでいる

Upcoming Work: A Musical and a Solo Exhibition

"Ensemble Days: They Also Have Names" (アンサンブルデイズ 彼らにも名前がある), a musical produced by the Cocoon Actors Studio (コクーンアクターズスタジオ)—the theater training program for young performers where Matsuo Suzuki serves as director—will be staged on December 19 and 20, 2026, at Bunkamura Theatre Cocoon (文化村シアターコクーン). This is the program's third presentation; direction is handled by Horikoshi Ryo (堀越亮). The same script is staged each year with a different cast, and the experiment has quietly changed how Matsuo writes. "When I hand a script to someone else, I write a little more gently," he said. "When I'm directing myself, I skip the footnotes and figure it out in the room."

Also on the horizon is "Matsuo Suzuki Exhibition 2026," running December 15, 2026 through February 21, 2027, at the Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art (北九州市立美術館). Roughly 300 works will be on display—new pieces alongside works from his first solo show in 2023—spanning acrylic paintings, iPad drawings, AI video, live painting performed on stage, life-size art sets, and original music. On his prolific Instagram presence, Matsuo offered a clarification: "People might think I've turned into an approval-seeking monster, but all of it is production work toward this exhibition."

The Hardest Thing to Make, and the Reality of Booking Theaters

Asked which creative form takes the most time, Matsuo answered without a pause: film. From pitching investors at the concept stage to working two years on a "unbelievably low" director's fee, the cost-to-return ratio is simply the worst, he said with a rueful laugh.

Theater is no walk in the park either. Venues need to be reserved two years out, and major-house outfits like Sis Company (シスカンパニー) and Gekidan Shinkansen (劇団☆新感線) are already moving two and a half years in advance. The real-world consequence: an actor Matsuo wants to cast writes back that they are already committed to a Noda MAP show. "It's dishonest for the me of three years ago to decide what I'll be doing," he said, while also marveling—with a pained laugh—at Noda Hideki's (野田秀樹) ability to assemble a lineup that already includes Hirose Suzu (広瀬すず) and Matsumoto Jun (松本潤) and then adds Furuta Arata (古田新太) on top: "What is he even doing?" He also let slip a small grudge: Noda apparently stepped on his foot onstage once.

How Matsuo Found Theater and Founded Otona Keikaku

Matsuo Suzuki originally wanted to be a manga artist, submitting work consistently, but hit a concrete wall: he could not draw climactic scenes. A casual invitation into his university's theater club turned out to be the pivot. "In theater, you can fudge climactic scenes," he realized, and that insight changed everything.

During his university years in Kyushu he did reasonably well at inter-university competitions. After moving to Tokyo while holding a day job, he saw his seniors perform and thought, "This is god-awful—I can do better." But when he started performing in Tokyo himself, the feeling was unsettling: "The story just keeps moving forward without getting any laughs—is this okay?" Still, he said, "there was always a faint sense of traction," a quietly positive hunch that kept him going.

He co-founded Otona Keikaku with a university acquaintance, recruiting members through flyers; the group began with five or six people. The name was entirely Matsuo's choice. At the time, a style of theater informed by Asada Akira's (浅田彰) escape theory—performers chasing a perpetual childhood—was fashionable, with adult actors strapping on schoolbags and running around the stage. To Matsuo, who had actual working experience, it was embarrassing, and in direct reaction he put "adult" (大人) in the group's name.

A Critique of Recent Sketch Comedy Acting

Matsuo has a specific complaint about where sketch comedy is heading. The culture of counting laughs in competitive comedy festivals (show races) has made it routine for performers to turn and face the audience when delivering the tsukkomi—a move that belongs to stand-up manzai but is increasingly bleeding into sketch comedy. "Theater's acting sensibility is being absorbed into sketch comedy," he said, naming it a genuine crisis. His position: manzai can face the crowd all it likes, but sketch comedy should keep the house lights down. At his own live shows, the house lights never come up.

Stage Design Philosophy: "If I'd Have to Lie, I Won't Do It"

When staging a bar scene, most companies place the counter at an angle to the audience. Matsuo does the opposite—the bartender faces away, which means the entire inside of the counter is visible, and every detail has to be fully constructed. The principle driving the choice: "If I'd have to lie, I won't do it."

For a foreign play built around extended debate scenes, he found a solution through the setting itself: the action takes place in a psychiatric ward, so he put actors on wheeled chairs, letting them move and keep their faces turned toward the audience. "Even an American company had gone with U-shaped seating where nobody faced the audience—and we beat that," he said with clear satisfaction.

These instincts around minimal, honest staging trace back, he noted, to Radical Gazberibim Bam Ban (ラジカル・ガジベリビムバムバン), a sketch unit formed with City Boys (シティボーイズ) that he joined by approaching them directly. That group worked with a set of plain black square boxes that could function as chairs, tables, or platforms—and from that experience Matsuo drew a rule he says has held ever since: he has never run a deficit. He also mentioned that the first performance fee he ever received came through the comedy group Jinrikisha (人力車), and the conversation ended with the shared observation that "box equals sketch comedy" probably has its roots somewhere in that lineage.