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About Yuki-za Yuki-za, a marionette theatre company, was founded by Yuki Magosaburo I in 1634 during the Edo period (1603-1867). Its history has spanned some three and a half centuries. The current company leader is Magosaburo XL According to two ancient documents - Ozatsuma Keifu (The Chronology of Ozatsuma Narrative Shamisen Music) and Seikyoku Ruisan (The Anthropology of Vocal Music), Yuki-za is the oldest marionette theatre to perform with the sekkyo joruri (preaching-style balad drama) in Edo. This demonstrates that the marionette art of Yuki-za has been banded down while keeping a close relationship with the narrative chant and music of Joruri. During the early period of the Japanese marionette history, there were a number of theatre proprietors (zamoto; theatre owners) and performers (tayu) of sekkyo bushi (music-chant performance of Buddha'a teachings), reaching its peak during the mid seventeenth century. In the early 1700's. sekkyo - bushi declined rapidly as gidayu - bushi (the chant style started by Takemoto Gidayu) became extremely popular, Yuki-za changed from sekkyo bushi to gidayu bushi early, becoming one of the foremost theatre companies to perform to the accompaniment of gidayu bushi. The Company had a permanent theatre at Fukiyacho in Edo, arid performed original plays one after the other. A representative play from that period is Meiboku Sendaihagi which deals with an internal trouble of the Date Clan. It is interesting to note that this play is still popularly performed in Kabuki. Commercial productions of performing arts were banned in 1841 by the Edo Government as part of the Great Revisions of the Tenpo Era, which was advocated by Mizuno Tadakuni, a Shogun’s coun-

cil man. When Tadakuni was made to resign from his post in 1843, three za companies of Kabuki-Ichimura-za, Nakamura-za, and Kawarazaki-za - ant two puppet companies-Satsuma-za of hand puppets and Yuki-za of string puppets (marionettes) - got together to move to Saruwakacho in Asakusa, establishing a new government-sanctioned theatre quarters. The government provided the land and subsidized the cost for moving. As time passed by, unfortunately, those theatre establishments in Saruwaka-cho disappeared: Satsuma-za no longer exists, and the three za companies of Kabuki kept only their names to represent proprietorships. Only Yuki-za continues to maintain the traditional za company system. At first the manipulative techniques of both the hand puppets and the marionettes were simple. Now the art of marionettes requires highly advanced techniques. The manipulation board, calle'd tehta (hand board), has two movable sticks inserted into a square wooden board. This te-ita is unique to Japanese marionettes: usually

one puppeteer manipulates one marionette, but sometimes two to three puppeteers may also manipulate one marionette. There are four ways of presenting marionettes on stage. The first three ways are concerned with the levels of positions for the puppeteer. First, the manipulation from a high position; only the puppet, attached to long strings, is visible to the audience. Second, the manipulation from a mediumhigh position; the puppet has medium-length strings. Third, the puppeteer and the puppet are at the same level. Lastly, the above three levels of manipulative positions are presented simultaneously in various combinations. With Yuki Magosaburo as the current Company head, Yuki-za is giving three to four performances every year, which consists not only of its classical repertory with the joruri narrative chanting, but also of magic lantern pictures (utsushi-e) of hand-painted glass slides, as well as new plays. Utsushi-e, the magic lantern pictures, has been handed down since the end of Edo period. One of the generations of Yuki Magosaburo

was also called. Ryokawa Senyu, a professional name as a utsushie artist. Its projector is called furo (a Japanese deep bath tub), and pictures are projected from the back side of the screen. Each slide is handpainted by an artist, and because glass is used, the projected colors are sharp and brilliant. The slide is then inserted into a frame called tane-ita (a base board). These days, the bath tub projector is equipped with a special lens, and some added devices on the base frame, pictures can be projected not only on a regular screen but onto the audience, on the walls and ceilings. Because of its dramatic and artistic qualities as well as its expressive merger with music, utsushi-e has been appraised as a synthetic art that transcends jenres. The modern repertory of Yuki-za consists of those that have been evolved in. cooperation with playwright-dramatists such as Fukuda Yoshiyki and Sato Makoto, and of translated Western plays. In the performances of the mo-

dern repertory, actors and marionettes play against each other, and a puppeteer may also perform as an actor on the same stage. The classical marionette methods and utsushi-e are also incorporated in such performances, creating a stage space unique to Yuki-za. There is no counterpart in the world of this type of performing company, and theatrically too, Yuki-za can be called a very special group.