For its last bunraku offering of the year, the National Theatre in Tokyo's central Hanzomon district staged two plays to great acclaim between Dec. 4-16: "Otonomiya Asahi no Yoroi" and "Koimusume Mukashi Hachijo."
Of these, the former is a classic example of the predominant style of Japan's traditional puppet theater dating from the early years of the Tokugawa Shogunate (1603-1867) in the Kamigata region of western Honshu, including the cities of Kyoto and Osaka. However, the latter play — whose title translates as "The Woman in Love, Wearing a Black Kimono with Yellow Cross-stripes" — was perhaps of more interest, being one of far fewer to have been written in Edo (present-day Tokyo), by Matsu Kanshi in 1775.
The play starts with Chigusanosuke, a son of Daimyo Hagiwara, losing a precious tea-container, which Obana Rokuroemon, the daimyo's regent, orders his son Saizaburo to find. He also sends his lover, a maid in the household named Okoma, back to her family until he retrieves it. Saizaburo soon finds the family heirloom was stolen by Akizuki Ikkaku, a samurai he kills while trying to get it back — but not before Akizuki throws it to his servant, Tsukudaya Kizo, who runs off.
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