Master Puppeteer Honored for Lifetime Achievement

John Roach
for National Geographic News

November 10, 2003

Tamao Yoshida, a puppeteer designated as a living national treasure of
Japan, recently agreed to appear in 136 bunraku performances in
Osaka and Tokyo over the next year. He is 84.

"As you get older, I think it is important to keep active, to keep my body healthy," he said through a translator.

Aficionados young and old, as well as the newly curious caught up in the 17th-century Japanese art form's resurgent popularity, will pack theaters to watch the acclaimed Tamao perform.

Others who recognize Tamao's artistic achievement include the Inamori Foundation, which today recognized Tamao as the 2003 Kyoto Prize Laureate in Arts and Philosophy. The prize, one of three awarded at a ceremony in Japan for significant contributions to the scientific, cultural, and spiritual development of humankind, comes with a gold medallion and a check worth about U.S. $400,000.

"This is indeed a high honor, not just for myself, but for the art of bunraku," said Tamao, during an interview before the ceremony. "I am speechless, filled with emotions."

Tamao, who started training at age 14, is a master puppeteer. He is credited with helping bunraku maintain its long-held status as the world's most highly developed and refined form of puppet theater.

Bunraku seamlessly combines dramatic narration, music accompaniment on a three-stringed samisen (an instrument resembling a mandolin), and the movement of puppets manipulated by three puppeteers to bring stories charged with human emotion alive.

"One of the most intriguing little tricks is the way the [bunraku puppeteers] keep the puppets in constant slight motion that simulates breathing," said Susan Matisoff, a professor of Japanese literature at the University of California at Berkeley. "If a puppet becomes entirely still, it seems dead."

Barbara Adachi, author of Backstage at Bunraku, said one of the things that makes Tamao so unique is his calm stage presence.

"His face is absolutely blank, expressionless, whether he is performing a passionate love scene or enacting ritual suicide," said Adachi, who lives in San Francisco, California. "That is wonderful because there is a magical moment when suddenly the puppeteers don't exist, and the puppets truly come to life."

Puppet Mastery

It takes three puppeteers to operate a single full-sized bunraku puppet, which is half as tall as a living person and can weigh as much as 45 pounds (20 kilograms).

The head puppeteer uses his left hand to support the torso and operate the head, while his right hand moves the puppet's right arm. One assistant operates the left arm and another operates the puppet's feet.

Mastery of bunraku puppetry takes decades. Practitioners traditionally spent 10 years working the feet and 15 to 20 as a left-arm operator before becoming a head puppeteer. Even the top performers constantly study the plays to determine how to better express human emotion with a doll.

During performances, the three puppeteers are in full view of the audience, moving in unison to breathe life into the puppets. They are usually cloaked in black and wear hoods that completely cover their heads.

"Because they are puppets, they can do things humans cannot do," said Tamao. "But our principle is to follow human movements and not take advantage of the super-human flexibilities of the puppets. We don't want to excite the audience with acrobatic motions, but by following the natural human movements as close as possible."

Tamao was just out of primary school when he became an apprentice to the bunraku master Tamajirô Yoshida and assumed the stage name Tamao Yoshida. (Rarely do Bunraku performers go by their personal name, which for Tamao is Sueichi Ueda.)

As is customary for an apprentice, Tamao performed menial labor and ran errands while learning the content of the plays by observing his master and watching performances from the wings of the stage.

After seven years learning how to operate the legs of the puppets, Tamao was drafted into the army. When he returned, he rejoined the Bunraku troupe and graduated to left-arm manipulator, a role he held for 14 years.

During those 14 years, he occasionally worked as a leg manipulator because of his recognized skill and also took on some minor roles as the head puppeteer before finally receiving the designation as a full-time head puppeteer.

According to Tamao, bunraku training is based on watching and imitating the art of superiors. "If you ask, they will tell you. But otherwise the masters do not instruct you step by step. You had to learn on your own," he said.

Bunraku's Future

Today, Tamao is a respected elder within the troupe and is training the next generation of performers. He hopes his successors will also learn as he did, by thoroughly studying each role and resisting flamboyant displays of their skills.

The training system, which Adachi, the American author, describes as steeped in formality and etiquette, has changed little from the old days.

"It is such a traditional art," she said. "They do exactly what has been done before. As they achieve seniority, talent, and recognition they make slight variations, adding individual artistry to their performances."

In 1984, the National Bunraku Theater opened in Osaka and incorporated a training center for would-be puppeteers, narrators, and musicians. Performances regularly take place twice daily to capacity audiences of 753 people. The troupe also performs at the National Theater in Tokyo where plays are usually sold out far in advance.

Tamao said he wants "bunraku to be loved by its audience" and expressed hope that audiences will continue to be excited and entertained.