Chikamatsu on the Art of
the Puppet Stage
[from Naniwa Miyage] by Hozumi Ikan
The art of the puppet stage has probably reached greater heights in Japan than elsewhere in the world, and it was the medium for which Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653–1725), the greatest Japanese dramatist, wrote his masterpieces. The following account of Chikamatsu’s views on the jōruri, or puppet stage, was written after his death, in 1738, by a friend. It is one of the most important examples of dramatic criticism in the literature.
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This is what Chikamatsu told me when I visited him many years ago:
Jōruri differs from other forms of fiction in that, since it is primarily concerned with puppets, the words must all be living and full of action. Because jōruri is performed in theatres that operate in close competition with those of the kabuki, which is the art of living actors, the author must impart to lifeless wooden puppets a variety of emotions, and attempt in this way to capture the interest of the audience. It is thus generally very difficult to write a work of great distinction.
Once when I was young and reading a story about the court,[1] I came across a passage which told how, on the occasion of a festival, the snow had fallen heavily and piled up. An order was given to a guard to clear away the snow from an orange tree. When this happened, the pine next to it, apparently resentful that its boughs were still bent with snow, recoiled its branches. This was a stroke of the pen which gave life to the inanimate tree. It did so because
- ↑ “The Tale of Genji.” The particular reference is to a passage in the chapter translated by Waley as “The Village of Falling Flowers.”
