Last Sunday I watched a Bunraku play. Bunraku is Japanese puppet theater with almost life-size puppets, each of the doll is played by three people. One moves the feet of the doll, a move the left hand and the main player moves his right hand and head. The players are dressed entirely in black, only the head of the main players is not covered.
Unlike other kinds of puppet theater, but otherwise the players trying to hide. They run very selbstverstädnlich across the stage, the story should be as captivating that the audience can only see the puppets. The puppeteers themselves are not talking, by the side there is another small stage, kneeling on which the narrator and the shamisen player. The narrator reads / sings the text and the figures so their voices and their character. The narrator and shamisen players together and their lives are bound together. Previously she spent almost her entire life together.
The piece I saw was a typical Bunraku play, a tragic love story that ended in a double suicide. A man was deceived by his friend for money, and publicly humiliated, and that means loss of honor, of course, to ancient Japan and suicide. His mistress would not of course be left alone and so the two of them in the woods and the man has only his wife and then killed himself with a sword.
content is actually happening is not much more, the scenes were less supported by the plot, as of the constant representation of the tragedy on the stage and through text and shamisen. The coordination of the narrator and shamisen player was incredible, not looking at the timing has always worked. The Narrator has of course used a microphone and still has, for dynamic voice filled the whole hall with his voice.
In the final scene, the way in the forest and the suicide came suddenly five stories and five Shamisen player on the side stage and have sometimes together, sometimes alternately listed in the final. Again, the timing was perfect again and made sure that the end was really very emotional.
Here again we had small radios was transferred to an English explanation of the scenes. As we left the theater, then we have seen that even most Japanese audio guide had, but of course in Japanese. The piece is so old that have the subtitles that were in the opera appear discreetly next to the stage was not sufficient to make the play understandable by all.
A few days after the performance we have experienced it happens to be out that we were probably in a special presentation, as the female lead role was played by a very famous puppeteer. All in all, the evening was very impressive and Bunraku is highly recommended!
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