Takatsuki

Vanya is envious and obsessed with what might have been; Kafuku is likewise unable to free himself from the past and looks jealously upon Takatsuki, whom he has cast in “Vanya” despite knowing of the affair.

We can never be sure if Kafuku is playing an elaborate mind game with Takatsuki — or if, more heartbreaking still, he’s trying to extract some hidden truth about the woman he loved but never fully knew.

In one extraordinary scene, Misaki drives both Kafuku and Takatsuki down a highway at night, and a space that was once a private shrine suddenly takes on the hushed quality of a confessional.

Takatsuki struggles to suppress his youthful callowness and self-destructive temper, and in Okada’s sensitive performance, we see an alarming vision of another encroaching tragedy.

And one of the actors in the production of "Uncle Vanya" is, surprisingly, Kôji Takatsuki.