Japan's Bunraku Puppets in US

The Bunraku Puppet Theater of Japan is visiting the US this month on a three-city tour. Now performing in Honolulu at the Kennedy Theatre through March 9, this unusual form of puppet theater first appeared in the small theaters of Kyoto and Osaka centuries ago. It will also be presented in New York by the Japan Society at the Lila Acheson Wallace Auditorium March 12 to 19.

Audiences will see colorful dance dramas, historical sagas, domestic tragedies, melodrama, and comedies. The text for these compositions are by many of Japan's most famous playwrights and will be acted out by ten of Bunraku's puppeteers, narrators, and musicians.

Each puppet is manipulated by as many as three puppeteers.

The theater will also perform in Boston March 21 and 22 at the John Hancock Hall.