Bunraku, Puppet Theatre

If you have ever attended a bunraku performance either in Japan or abroad, then you have
experienced a theatrical performance like no other. Bunraku is a fairly recent term describing the
traditonal professional puppet theatre of Japan. A more descriptive term is ayatsuri joruri. Ayatsuri
means puppetry and joruri refers to reading dramatic text through the art of chanting. Bunraku
performs dramas in an entertaining and serious fashion. These are all performed by puppets
manipulated by three puppeteers per puppet, a chanter -called a tayu- narrating the performance, and
a shamisen player providing musical accompaniment. The name bunraku comes from a particular
puppet troupe headed by the main puppeteer whose stage name was Uemaru Bunrakken. He was
active in the mid 1800's and the troupe's subsequent popularity allowed the form to regain its former
popularity. In 1872, the Bunraku Theatre opened and the name came to denote the style of Osaka
puppet theatre. Even though we may discuss earlier forms, we will still describe them as bunraku for
the purposes of this article.
Bunraku has often been described as the
art of threes, because it is composed of
the interplay of the puppets, the tayu, and
the shamisen (a three-string banjo type
instrument) player. It also requires three
puppeteers to make the main character
puppets perform. It is the confluence of
these three principal components that
makes bunraku the special theater that it
is. But there are certainly a lot more people involved in the total performance of a bunraku play: set
designers and makers, stage hands, puppet head keepers, wig masters, prop masters, and a costume
seemstress all work together.
Unlike other western puppetry such as marionettes and hand puppets, bunraku plays are always
performed with the puppeteers in view of the audience. The tayu, and the shamisen player sit on an
auxillary stage off to the side and are also seen by the audience. The tayu sits with the libretto of the
play before him on a kendai, a lacquer bookstand. The shamisen player sits to his left. More elaborate
plays may have two sets of tayu and shamisen players.

History
The earliest mention of the word puppet is kugutsu, which comes from 8th century Buddhist texts. The

origin of this word has been a point of discussion over the years, with some stating that the word and art
of puppetry came from the Middle East via the Silk Road. The earliest known puppets were used in
Shinto rituals. These puppet performances were used to show the ancient past glories of the divinities
that were worshipped at the shrine. Typically, the puppets were used to perform dances and wrestling
matches.
Puppet performances not tied to Shinto go back to the 11th century. These performances were put on by
what is described in old texts as
nomadic hunters and workers.
These wandering workers would
additionally support themselves by
performing episodic puppet plays.
As an additional source of income,
the women in the group would also
engage in prostitution. Most of
these troupes eventually centered in Sanjo on Awaji island. There they perfected the art of various forms
of puppetry.
The earliest form of bunraku puppet theatre was created by a troupe started in the mid 1500's at the
Nishinomiya Shrine near Osaka. These puppeteers were known as ebisu-mawashi. Some forty years
later saw the addition of the joruri chanters and shamisen players to enhance the puppet performance.
The puppets of those troupes were manipulated with both hands and the puppeteers were hidden below
a front curtain. These puppets evolved into complex devices that eventually, around the mid 1730's,
became the type of puppet that we are most familiar with in bunraku. Concurrenty, the curtain hiding the
operators would sometimes be made of gauze so that the audience could see their movements, evolving
into the practice of showing the operators in full view of the audience. A number of puppet troupes
formed in Kyoto and Edo, but the merchant city of Osaka with its large merchant population was the
place were puppet theatre flourished the most. At its height in the early 18th century, bunraku was more
popular than kabuki theater. Much of this popularity was due to the plays of Chikamatsu Monzaemon.
Bunraku's popularity increased after Chikamatsu's death in 1714 and remained popular until the 1780's.
One of the most popular plays is Chusingura, The Treasury of the Faithful Retainers. It was based on
the famous revenge by the forty-seven ronin in 1743. When that play was performed in its entirety it
lasted eleven hours. In the latter part of the 18th century, playwrights began abandoning bunraku for
kabuki theater. Many of the popular bunraku texts were adapted by kabuki. However, the public's
appetite for bunraku switched to kabuki The decline of audience attendence almost forced bunraku into

extinction, despite the fact that new heights of artistry were achieved at that time. It was not until the
aforementioned Bunrakken's theater that the art was revived in the mid 1800's.

Puppets and Operators

Bunraku puppets are generally two thirds to one half lifesize. The heads are made of wood have a handle grip that
is inserted into a wooden body. The heads are usually
grouped by sex, age and facial temperment. The facial
expression can be fixed or demonstrated through the use
of moveable eyes, mouths, eyebrows, and sometimes
noses and ears. Female puppets have no feet but have
hands that are delicate and flexible. The movement of the
legs is simulated through the puppeteer's movement of the
lower kimono. Heads are disproportionally small because a
small head is considered more attractive than a large one.
Some female heads have a small needle near the mouth
that can hook the kimono sleeve onto it to portray crying.
The left arm of the puppet is generally longer than the right
because the operator of the arm has to stand further away.
Audiences generally ignore or don't even notice the difference. A theater group can have as many as
three hundred puppet heads in its repetoire. Male heads tend to be the more complex but there are
some roles in which the femal character's head transforms itself into a fox or even a demon with a
hannya (devil looking) type face.
On stage, the chief puppeteer, the omo-zukai, manipulates the
head and the right arm. His left arm and hand is inserted through
the back of the doll and holds the head grip. He turns the head
and manipulates any articulated facial features by pulling on
toggled strings with his fingers. His right hand is put through a
strap underneath the puppet's right hand in order to hold any
props. He also can manipulate any articulation in the puppet's
hand. He wears tall straw clogs on his feet which elevate him
above the other puppeteers. The omo-zukai generally wears a
black kimono and a hakama, a split skirt. He is sometimes
hooded but if the play is one of great diffficulty to perform, he will

perform hoodless. It is the omo-zukai who chooses the head of his principal puppet from the inventory of
available heads.
The second puppeteer, and the first assistant, is the hidari-zukai: he manipulates the left hand and arm.
The third puppeteer, called the ashi-zukai, moves the puppet's legs. As mentioned before, since female
dolls usually have no feet or legs because of the long kimono worn, the robes are folded and shaped to
represent movement of the legs. The assistants are always clothed in black with hoods. The
apprenticeship of puppet operators can be quite lengthy. The ashi-zukai must apprentice for 10 years
before graduating to hidari-zukai. Likewise the hidari-zukai generally operates the left arm for the same
amount of time before he can assume the mantel of omo-zukai, although there is not really a set
timetable for their advancement
Historically, puppet operators have always been on the low rung
of the social acceptance ladder. They traditionally have been
looked down on in relation to the tayu and even the shamisen
player. It may have something to do with puppetry's early history. It
might also have to do with the nature of the operator's job. The
better he does it, the more invisible he becomes. It is amazing to
watch a play with several principal characters on stage operated
by many as nine puppeteers. The coordination in which they
harmoniously move together, putting life into the puppets, while
seeming to disappear from the audience's gaze, is an incredible
feat of artistry. Today, puppeteers are held in the same high
regard as other theatrical artists.

Chanting
The art of story telling through the spoken word is the oldest way of conveying fables, myths, and epic
stories in all cultures. In 15th and 16th century Japan, biwa hoshi, blind bards, would tell stories from
legendary tales such as The Tale of Heike, Heike monogatari. They would accompany themselves on
the biwa, a lute type instrument imported from China via Persia. During the latter 16th century, the nature
of this chanting changed into the style called joruri. The term originated with a story called Joruri which
was the name of a girl who was in love with the historical, tragic hero Minamoto Yoshitsune. The story
was told through the chanter and became so popular that it became synonomous with that style of
chanting art. This style of chanting was very popular with the common people. It became even more

popular when music from a shamisen, introduced to Japan around the same time, accompanied the
chanting. Many of the stories were taken
from the classics but also many were
adpatations from Noh plays.