A Book of Marionettes

by Helen Haiman Joseph

Old Japanese Puppet Heads

From a collection in the Brooklyn Institute Museum

[Founded by Mr. Stewart Culin in Kyoto, 1912]

Japan has developed a marionette tradition altogether and amazingly unique. Indeed so powerful a factor has it been that living actors in the classic drama have accepted the conventions of the puppet stage and are trained to the gesture and manner of the ancient marionette. This does not apply, of course, to the innumerable strolling booths of the Chinese linen bag variety, but rather to the renowned and long established stationary theatres for puppets, theatres with exclusive boxes for the select and well-to-do of the audience and ample seating capacity for the common people who visit the show in great numbers.

The dolls are not quite half as tall as a man; they are very realistically conceived and the mimicry of nature is carried into the minutest details. Mr. Joly has published some tracings of parts of these Japanese puppets which indicate how elaborate the inner mechanism must be; a hand in which each joint of each finger is articulated, a head in which the eyes move from side to side. Indeed, these marionettes frequently raise their eyebrows to express scorn or surprise. The costumes are of rich silk and brocade, profusely embroidered, often jeweled and always designed with special thought for their decorative effect. Nay more, when a gown is new or particularly handsome a boy comes deliberately out and places a lantern directly in front of the doll so that no elegant detail shall be overlooked by the audience. The puppets are, necessarily, very costly and they represent altogether quite a large amount of capital for which the theatres are often specially taxed.

The stages are quite large. The puppets are fastened by means of rods to their stands (all but the spirits and magic figures, which are worked with wires from above and float through the air). The most curious feature in the Japanese show is the manner of manipulating. The operators work on the stage in full view of the audience with the puppets placed in front of them. They speak no word and are frequently assisted by similarly mute scholars. These, to make themselves less conspicuous, often wear black-hooded robes; but the expert and favorite manipulators themselves are generally very gayly attired and their entrances are not infrequently greeted with applause. Often there are more persons working the puppets than there are puppets to be seen on the stage.

The words of the drama are read by the Gidayu or chanter, arrayed in a splendid ceremonial costume and sitting respectfully on a platform to the left of the stage behind a low stand upon which there rests a copy of the text. He chants loudly and musically, varying according to the nature of the account and of the characters. The chanters are artists of high standing, in fact somewhere in the seventeenth century they had already established a unique form of elocution. The reading is generally accompanied by the strains of the samisen, a three-stringed instrument, played by an artist who sits on the platform next to the chanter. Sometimes besides the principal Gidayu there are others who chant as a sort of chorus. In some performances there are as many as thirty-three Gidayus, twenty-nine samisen players, some forty manipulators and several cleaners of lamps and stage hands. The chanter, after an exciting passage, may take a sip of tea or expectorate into a little bamboo cuspidor, the musicians may emphasize important lines by warning notes, the operators may jog about; Japanese audiences are accustomed to these incidental happenings and accept them with undisturbed equanimity. To Occidental witnesses they are likely to seem distractions.

There are several types of classic drama in Japan, one of which is the Joruri, or epical play originally composed expressly for the marionette stage. The name is derived from a drama written by a clever and beautiful court lady of Yeddo (1607–1688). It was called The Story of The Lady Joruri and being tremendously popular was followed by many similar plays. It was later set to samisen music and during the Eiroken period a woman singer gave performances of Joruri with puppets in Kyoto. She was so successful that she was commanded to play before noble families, finally even before the Emperor himself.

In these epic dramas there are long, poetic passages as well as narrative parts. Early in the seventeenth century Takemoto Gidayu, noted samisen player and puppet showman, invented a more brilliant presentation of puppet shows to the accompaniment of Joruri recitation and samisen music. His shows were popular with the nobility, the populace and the Samurai (who enjoyed the warlike elements in them) and he, too, was summoned to perform at the palace of the Emperor. In 1685 he established a stationary marionette theatre in Osaka called Takemoto Za. For this theatre some of Japan’s best classic dramas were written. One playwright, Chikamatsu Monzayemon, the Shakespeare of Japan, together with his pupils, wrote about one hundred pieces for these puppets. In 1703 a rival theatre was founded in Osaka by a pupil of Gidayu. It was called Toyotake Za and it also had its able dramatists and enthusiastic following. The two theatres were at their zenith early in the eighteenth century; Izuma and Sosuki wrote for them. A few of their plays were in a realistic vein, such as, The Woman’s Harakari at Long Street, or more frequently they were of a heroic temper, The Battle of Kokusenya, or The Loyalty of the Five Heroes, The Revenge of the Soga Brothers, and often they were such romantic affairs as the hopeless passion of two young lovers with the familiar ending of their double suicide called shinju.