Bunraku!

Friday night I found myself unprepared for the weekend. What should I do? The weather was not that great as it seems it would rain most of the weekend... So, I remembered that I wanted to see some Japanese theater while I'm here. I stumble upon the National Bunraku Theater website, and find that I can get a ticket for Saturday's 4:00 performance for only 2300 yen! It's the very last row, but I'd rather not pay a whopping 4300 (4100 with a student ID, how generous).

In retrospect the 11:00 show might have been more entertaining as the first act had something to do with monkeys. But that was a bit too early for my want of a lazy morning. I met up with Joe on my way to Hirakata and we went and ate in the Yoshinoya at the station, a great place to get delicious, cheap rice-bowl meals. Afterwards we did some shopping and I got a good sweater-jacket, Japanese style. Quite pleased with it. All that's left on my list now is just another pair of pants, a shirt or two, some wooden dishware, and a load of manga to bring back. Getting it all home will be an adventure for another day.

For those of you unfamiliar with Bunraku, it's puppet theater accompanied by chanters and a koto player. It takes 3 people per puppet, one for the body, one for the left arm, one for the right arm and head. It takes 10 years to move from the body to the left arm, 10 from there to the head. The two lesser puppeteers are shrouded in black clothing as to not draw attention to them, and the guy who does the head gets his face exposed for his efforts. Puppets move very lifelike, except when walking backwards they moonwalk... I don't understand that part.

There were some other foreigners at the theatre. I sat behind some who spoke Spainish, I believe. The first act was 二つ蝶々くるわにっき　(The Two Butterflies), which contained なんばうら喧嘩　(The Fighting at Nambaura) which was about one Samurai throwing around two smaller ones until they died, and then he may have killed two more then ran away. Under the same storyline was やわたのさと引き窓 (The Skylight), which made very little sense. The samurai from the previous story hides in his sister's house, and his brother-in-law becomes the new deputy magistrate and has to hunt him down. He leaves to search for the samurai while the samurai hides in the house, and his mother and sister cut his hair for him, then his brother-in-law dept. magistrate comes back, throws a dart at his face, and his defining mole is torn asunder? What? Then the magistrate runs away again, comes back, throws money instead of a dart this time, and has him run away? Bunraku stories don't make much sense.

The last three were acts of 八人しゅごのほんじょ　(which they gave a different English title, Masakiyo's Loyalty?). なにわ入江　(The Port of Naniwa) featured a pretty boat, where some smaller boat came up to it and asked the fancy court person Masakiyo if he is well, he apparently lies and says he is, then the boat goes away... Another one comes, some weirdo gives Masakiyo a sake barrel, then some ninjas attack and he dispatches them, then the boat swivels around (which was amazing,) and then he cries for about 5 minutes? There was a long koto solo by one of the puppets which was quite good.

かずえのすけ　はやうち　(Kazuenosuke's Hurried Visit), the next act, was about Masakiyo praying in his room for 100 days straight (Why? we don't know.) Some guy comes by, visits, leaves, then another one comes, tosses a sake barrel at the retainers of the castle, then leaves.

まさきよ　ほんじょ　(Which now means Masakiyo's Castle... What does ほんじょ even mean?) , was quite long. Basically more people some to visit the castle, and some people from another faction sneak in to Masakiyo's room disguised as rats (using magic?) and attack, and are all thrown about by Masakiyo, then killed by his one retainer. His one friend gets a divorce letter since her husband joined the other faction, so she sticks a knife in her throat and proceeds to die over the next half hour, gurgling about on stage. Then Masakiyo dons some spiffy armor, some guy reveals to everyone that he is in fact someone with a different name which may or may not be important, and they all march off to battle in an exxagerated manner. At one point Masakiyo takes his sword out and a dark cloud floats over him.

There were subtitles for people who can't understand the chanting, as it is difficult, and all the words are in old Japanese, which does have resemblances to the modern kind. I could read some of the kanji, so I kind of new what was going on, sometimes. I maybe got 20% of what was going on, which is pretty good.

I ran into Jesse and James (no, not Team Rocket :P ) , they had a Japanese friend with them, Nanae. I told her what I did and she said "Whoa, you must be really intelligent! Intellectual!" "Haha, no no, I didn't understand it very well at all..." About as many Japanese go to Bunraku as Americans do symphany orchestra or opera. 4 hours is a bit rough... But I didn't fall asleep.

The only other two I want to see now are Kabuki and Kyogen (the humorous side of Noh,) but not Noh. Noh would be too painful. Far too painful. Angela wants to see Kabuki too, so I'll put off on that one for now, I think.