Martin Holman,
Director
Bunraku Bay Puppet
Troupe
433 Strickland
Columbia, Missouri 65211
Tel. (573)
882-3368 Email: bunrakubay@gmail.com
And visit the
following website:
www.bunraku.org
The early
history of the Tonda Puppets is documented
by few written sources. According to the story passed down through the
years,
an itinerant puppet troupe from Awa, in present-day Tokushima
Prefecture
on the island of Shikoku, came to Tonda to perform during the winter in
the
mid 1830s. Bad weather prevented the troupe from performing for several
weeks
as they remained snowbound in the village. By the time they could move
on,
they were broke, so they left behind a large number of puppets and
stage
equipment with the local people as collateral for a loan to pay their
travel
expenses back to Shikoku. After years passed and no one returned to
reclaim
the puppets, the people of Tonda began to try their hand at operating
the
puppets themselves. When another itinerant puppet troupe came through
the
area a few years later, the people of Tonda had the visitors teach them
the principles of puppet manipulation and the conventions of the
theatre. This was the beginning of the Tonda Bunraku theatre.
Other local puppet troupes existed across rural
Japan
during the same period. Most often they were a diversion performed and
enjoyed
by farmers in the off season. Many reached a high level of
sophistication 
through the dedication of generations of puppeteers, chanters, and
samisen
players. By the late 1800s the Tonda Puppets had achieved a level of
skill
that led them to travel outside their home area to offer performances
on
the road.
The Tonda Bunraku Puppets continued to delight
audiences
for many years. The art of puppet manipulation was passed down
exclusively
from father to eldest son, as were the arts of reciting the texts and
performing
the samisen accompaniment, but there came a period when general
interest
in the puppet theatre as well as other traditional entertainments
flagged
in the middle of the twentieth century and many troupes disappeared.
Fortunately,
recent years have seen a renewal of interest in traditional
entertainment
all over Japan. The Tonda Bunraku Puppet Troupe was fortunate to have
dedicated
members whose association with the theatre went back many generations
and
who carried the troupe through difficult times.
Some changes have come to the troupe in the
last few
decades. Since the 1970s men from outside traditional puppeteering
families
as well as women have been welcomed into the troupe. The Tonda Bunraku
Puppet
Troupe 
is now designated as an Intangible Cultural Treasure, rehearsing and
performing in its own theatre build in 1991 by the Shiga Prefectural
government and at
Lute Plaza Municipal Hall, which was constructed in 1998 with a stage
designed
specifically for the Tonda Puppets. The Troupe is active in recruiting
and
training new puppeteers and frequently offers performances for school
groups
to introduce a new generation to the puppet theatre. The Troupe
is
now headed by Mr. Hidehiko Abe, a seventh-generation puppeteer whose
great-great-great-great
grandfather was one of the founding members of the Troupe.
In fall 1993, the Tonda Bunraku Troupe became
the first traditional puppet troupe in Japan to admit a non-Japanese as
a performing member. Since then, the Tonda Troupe has been active in
teaching Bunraku puppetry
to college and university students from the United States and has
hosted
theatre practitioners from abroad who have visited the Tonda Puppetry
Hall
in Biwa-cho to study Bunraku techniques.
In 1994 the troupe performed by invitation in
New Zealand. They toured the United States in 1999, 2001, 2003, and
2004, performing in Massachusetts, Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana,
Missouri, Utah, New Jersey,
and Michigan. The Tonda Bunraku Troupe has also been invited to
perform
in Minnesota in July 2005 as the featured guest act at the quadrennial
conference
of the Puppeteers of America.
Plans are now being made for another
performance tour
to North America in October 2004. If you would be interested in
bringing the
Tonda Bunraku Troupe to your area for a performance, please get in
touch
at the email address at the bottom of the page. Also, members of
the
Tonda Troupe are available to travel internationally for smaller
puppetry
demonstrations and workshops. Please get in touch if you would like
details.
The history of
the Japanese puppet theatre known commonly
today as Bunraku began sometime before the year 1600 when puppet
manipulation,
the tradition of oral narrative, and the music of the samisen were
combined
in a dramatic form that came to be the most popular entertainment in
Japan.
In Japan, puppets seem to have been used for
centuries in a formal context in religious rituals at shrines and
temples, while storytellers
had been relating tales of heroism and tragedy for generations.
Eventually
a tradition of recitation to musical accompaniment developed as an art
form
with blind balladeers who traveled the countryside telling tales
derived
from legend and from the history of years of warfare in Japan.
Originally
the biwa, or Japanese lute, had been used to accompany such narrative,
but
in the middle of the sixteenth century a new three-stringed instrument
was
introduced to Japan from Okinawa. It was soon modified into the
instrument
now called the samisen and came to be preferred for its greater range
of
expression that the expanding scope of storytelling demanded. Simple
puppets
were used to illustrate the story line.
The peaceful seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries in Japan saw the flourishing of the merchant classes who
sought entertainment. In the cities of Kyoto, Osaka, and Edo
(present-day Tokyo) puppet troupes were formed and the commercial
theater developed at a rapid pace. In the late
1600s, a narrative chanter Takemoto Gidayu founded a theater in Osaka.
He
was joined by the playwright Chikamatsu Monzaemon who devoted himself
to
writing plays drawn from the daily life of townspeople, which were in
contrast
to the legendary and historical themes of the plays that had been
commonly
performed until his time.
Competition between rival theatres was fierce,
which
led to innovations in puppet manipulation and design. Until the end of
the
seventeenth century, the puppet had been a simple creation operated
from
beneath by a single puppeteer, but in 1703 audiences were surprised to
see
the puppeteers appear in full view of the audience. Eventually the
chanter
and samisen player were also removed from behind the curtain and given
their
own small stage to the right of the main puppet stage. Later years saw
puppet
design become more sophisticated with the appearance of movable eyes
and
hands. In 1734 the system of three-man operation, in which the main
puppeteer
operates the head and right-hand, a second puppeteer manipulates the
left
hand, and the third moves the feet, became the standard.
Through most of the 1700s, the puppet theatre
was the most popular form of dramatic entertainment in Japan, far more
popular than the live-actor Kabuki drama. Theatres were established
outside the major
cities and some troupes toured the countryside offering performances
even
in remote towns and villages. By the late 1770s, however, the puppet
theatre
suffered a decline in its major center of Osaka.
Interest was revived in the nineteenth century
by
a puppeteer named Uemura Bunrakuken, whose name came to be synonymous
with
the puppet theatre. Bunraku is now the most common term used to refer
to
the puppet theatre, although purists insist that the word designates
only
puppetry derived directly from the late Osaka tradition. The Tonda
Puppets
trace their origin to Tokushima on the island of Shikoku, where some of
the
earliest developments in puppet theatre occurred. But the various
traditions
were never completely independent; puppeteers traveled and most new
plays,
as well as innovations in performance techniques, quickly made their
way
around the country. The word Bunraku now indicates to most people the
three-man
style of manipulation that the Tonda Puppets employ.
The play Keisei Awa no Naruto
was first staged
in June of 1769 at the Takemoto Theatre in Osaka in commemoration of
its
re-opening. It is one of the most popular pieces in the Bunraku
repertoire.
The work is a collaboration by a number of
playwrights and it is thought to be based on an earlier work by the
most famous playwright of the puppet theatre, Chikamatsu Monzaemon.
Bunraku plays generally are divided
into two categories: jidaimono, plays about legendary and
historical
figures, and sewamono, plays about contemporary, more ordinary
people.
Keisei Awa no Naruto belongs to the latter group.
Jurobei, a samurai, has taken upon himself the
task
of finding his master's lost sword. He moves to Osaka with his wife
Oyumi,
leaving their infant daughter in the care of her grandmother for her
own
safety. He joins a band of thieves to allow himself access to places
where
the sword might be found and has been searching for 10 years to no
avail.
In the scene immediately preceding the one
performed, a messenger visits Oyumi who is alone at home. He brings a
letter from one
of Jurobei's cohorts: their crimes have been discovered and some
members of
the group have been caught. Jurobei and his wife should flee as soon as
possible
to escape capture.
Shortly thereafter, Oyumi hears the songs of a
Buddhist
pilgrim and the ringing of a bell. A young girl on a pilgrimage has
called
at the house. Oyumi gives her an offering of rice and invites her in
when
she learns that the 
girl is from her own home province. The girl tells of how she is on a
walking pilgrimage from distant Awa in search of her parents from whom
she was separated
when she was a small child. Suspicious, Oyumi asks the names of the
girl's
parents. Whereupon, the girl tells her they are "Jurobei" and "Oyumi."
Shocked to learn that the girl standing before
her
is her own daughter Otsuru, whom she had left behind years earlier,
Oyumi
is torn; she wants to take her beloved daughter in her arms, but if she
reveals
to the Otsuru that she is her mother the girl will surely be dragged
into
the sordid and potentially fatal affairs of her family. Oyumi fears for
her
daughter's life should she rejoin her parents, who may themselves be
doomed.
Clutching the letter she had earlier received, Oyumi vacillates but
finally
decides to compose herself and keep her identity secret.
The purity of Otsuru's devotion to the search
for her parents pierces Oyumi's heart. She waivers several times but
finally decides
to tell the girl that she should go back to her grandmother and await
her
parents' return.
Touched by Oyumi's motherly compassion, the
girl pleads
that Oyumi might allow her to stay. Oyumi is overwhelmed by sadness but
realizes
that she must send Otsuru away for her own safety. She prepares some
traveling
money and gives it to the girl, but Otsuru will not accept it: she has
enough
for the road. Oyumi brushes the dust from Otsuru's kimono, then takes a
hairpin
and fixes Otsuru's hair before the girl turns to leave.
Unable to part without seeing her one last time
Oyumi
calls her daughter back to her and they embrace. Otsuru grasps the end
of
a strip of cloth that Oyumi is holding and tries to pull her mother
toward
her in a highly-stylized scene that is one of the most famous in the
puppet 
theatre. Oyumi eventually pushes Otsuru out of the house then sits
stifling
her sobs beside the closed door as Otsuru beats on it from the other
side.
Oyumi listens as Otsuru's song fades in the
distance. Overcome with grief that she may never see her daughter
again, Oyumi rushes out of the house to call her back. But the girl is
already gone. Anguished, Oyumi is reduced to tears, but she resolves to
go after her daughter. The scene ends with Oyumi standing before her
house preparing to leave.
Martin Holman,
Director
Bunraku Bay Puppet
Troupe
433 Strickland
Columbia, Missouri 65211
Tel. (573)
882-3368 Email: bunrakubay@gmail.com
This page was last modified September 9, 2009.