Osaka and Puppets

Saturday was a great deal of fun, but also incredibly long. For my performance class we had tickets to go see The National Bunraku Theatre in Osaka, about an hour and a half by train from Kyoto. Bunraku is traditional Japanese puppetry, where each puppet is about ¾ life size and operated by three men: one on the feet, one on the left hand and one on the head and right hand. These men operate in full view of the audience, but one hardly notices them. The puppets themselves are capable (because of their complex design and three-man system of operation) of extreme levels of subtle movement, including moving eyebrows (on some puppets) and heavy breathing of someone scared or exhausted. Because the puppets are so dynamic and evocative, the impassive faces of the men behind them are easily ignored. Well, a friend and I got to Osaka pretty early so that we could have a look around, since neither of us had ever been in the city before. The section that we were in seemed rather like any other big city in America, except for the extreme proliferation of themed specialty hotels, including a Christmas-themed one that was pink and decorated in giant Santa Claus figures. We also found ourselves at one point in a massive shopping arcade, that was made up of a number of covered streets and cross-streets full of all sorts of stores. Before the performance itself we were able to meet with one of the puppeteers who showed us how the puppets worked and moved up-close, and then led us around backstage of the theatre itself. We even got to stand on the stage with the curtain closed, which was very exciting for me, at least. The shows were both very well done, though I preferred the second piece, ‘Love Suicides at Sonezaki’ to the first one, which was a story from the ‘Tale of the Heike’. All told, each play was two hours long with a 30-minute break in between, which made for a very long day. If anyone has a chance to go, however, I would recommend it, especially because they provide very good earphone guides for non-Japanese speakers if you reserve them. Unfortunately, as has happened to me a couple times since being here, I expected to eat with people after the show, but everyone else had had their fill with the snacks that they ate at intermission, and as it had gotten so late most of them opted to just head home, so I was left eating dinner at Mos burger by myself, which was still very tasty.
-A full program of Bunraku is four hours in the morning and then another four in the afternoon. I don’t think that I could sit for that long, even though it is amazing.
-You can eat meals in the Theatre itself, though you need to make sure that you don’t have any crinkling paper or anything.
-A popular actress here admitted on TV that she was afraid of the ceramic badger figures that you often find in front of shops or in gardens here, and after seeing the one above I don’t think I blame her.
-The Japanese term for a comb-over translates to ‘barcode,’ which is pretty funny, in my opinion.
-Maybe I should check with people about dinner plans before I make assumptions about them.