Japanese Bunraku performed Theater Arts Classes

Students create puppets, scripts, and perform traditional style of Japanese theater

Hillsboro Globe Reporter – Arts Desk • December 9, 2024

If you have ever seen the Hillsboro Players Theater perform a musical or drama, it will not surprise you to learn that students enrolled in theater arts classes are performing Bunraku.

Bunraku is a rich and intricate storytelling art form studied by students in Hillsboro, known for its highly stylized puppetry and storytelling. The puppeteers wear traditional black clothing to remain inconspicuous while bringing the puppets to life, and the performances often include live music and narration. Comparatively, the other three forms of traditional Japanese theater are:

Kabuki – known for its vibrant costumes and makeup
Noh is recognized for its slow, graceful movements and spiritual themes
Kyogen features comedic interludes.

Each of these forms has its unique characteristics and history, contributing to the richness of Japanese theater. Students of Kristin Butler, theater teacher at Hillsboro High School studied the ancient art of Japanese theater. They made puppets, and performed the play by Chikamatzu Monzaemon entitled Sonezaki Shinju. The name, Sonezaki Shinju, translates to The Love Suicides at Sonezaki.

Students of Hillsboro High School Theater Arts II class perform Bunraku, a traditional form off Japanese Theater.

Butler, who is also the director of the performance group, the Hillsboro Players, was proud of her Theater Arts II class and their performance in the style of Bunraku that uses puppeteers who work collaboratively to create characters who come to life through the skillful use of manipulating puppets in a human-like manner.

One of the most difficult things to learn is how to work together as a team of three or more, to find that moment where the puppet manipulators work effortlessly in tandem with each other. “The goal is to move the puppets in a fluid and graceful manner,” said Kingston Eller after a recent performance. “Puppeteers work in groups of three, with each person moving different body parts to create a human likeness as a character.” Kingston Eller, one of the performers directing the play said the “fluidity of the puppet’s movements when performed correctly takes the audience on a transformative and ethereal journey.”

In the traditional type of Japanese theater, the narrator is as important as the puppets and puppeteers. Addie Nine,, also a member of the Hillsboro Players narrated the recent performance using the tone of her voice and the pace of the storytelling that reflects the action of the puppets. The puppets and the narrator perform simultaneously story as performance unfolds. The intonation of Nine’s voice and the drama she brought to the performance left the audience feeling as though they were truly watching human characters rather than puppets.

In Sonezaki Shinju, the audience finds there are plot similarities to Shakespeare’s tragic play “Romeo and Juliet” which also has double suicide of star-crossed lovers. The Shinju’s main characters Tokubei, a store clerk meets his beloved courtesan, and Ohatsu meet at the Ikutama Shrine of Osaka. A series of misfortunes ensue, and the couple decides it is better to die together than to live apart.

The play, has something for everyone, violence, love, tragedy and even a bit of comedy. Hillsboro students were adept in create not just the action but also the actual puppets. They worked to manipulate limbs and head gestures behind the puppets. At the beginning of the play, the puppeteers doing the manipulation are somewhat distracting. However, it does not take long for the audience to forget that they are watching puppets, the puppeteers disappear and the puppets come to life.

Making the audience forget that the puppeteers are in the performance and concentrating on the puppets themselves is a goal for the performers. In theater, this is called ‘suspension of disbelief’, and is defined as the idea that audiences should temporarily ignore the unreality of a fictional story to immerse themselves in the narrative and experience the characters’ actions.

Suspension of disbelief is a fundamental concept in storytelling in Banraku. It is essential for audiences to enjoy and engage with a performance an puppets’ action. Nine’s stellar narrative performance took the audience on a journey with the characters fading the puppet manipulators into the background. She gave gravity to the seriousness of the action on the stage with her reading.

Bunraku puppeteer Kanjuro Kiritake, who was designated a Living National Treasure by the Japanese government, performs Bunraku during a program titled “Komochi Yamanba” (“The Pregnant Mountain Ogress”) at the National Theatre in Tokyo, Japan, Sept.7, 2020. (REUTERS PHOTO)

Students in Hillsboro theater arts classes start their study of the art form by researching theaters from around the world. Students then research the ancient form of Bunraku. As part of the unit, students write a play and perform a play. Students both perform the play traditionally, and wrote a personal narrative that was modern and characteristically American “Learning about storytelling in a variety of cultural forms” is the main objective for Ms. Butler. She teaches these cultural forms of theater because it is important for students to understand there are more similarities universally and cross-culturally than there are differences.