.:Bunraku:. Visit to the Polygot Theatre-Bunraku Puppetry Manipulation

Wednesday 30^th of April, 2008

I had a very interesting and insightful experience today. We visited the Polyglot Theatre in South Yarra to undertake a workshop in Bunraku puppetry! This was very exciting and I had been looking forward to it since we first found out that we were going! It was a very expensive excursion, but it was worth every cent our school paid! We left at 8:15 in the morning and arrived in traffic (of course!) at South Yarra, eventually making it into the Polyglot theatre. It was so interesting to step inside a small theatre without an

yone else being there, no audience, no cast. There were just rows of empty seats and a stage, bare, but thinking about how many productions would have been cast on that stage thrilled me.

We began our Bunraku workshop by discussing briefly what Bunraku puppetry was about. I had already researched Bunraku puppetry using the book that I had borrowed yesterday, so I knew a little bit about it! After discussing this, we set about making our puppets! We began by drawing comical faces on sheets of paper and then applying our design to a piece of foam. Once happy with or design, we cut out our design (all the foam stuck to our jumpers and skirts, not so great!) After this, we cut the nose, ears and mouth of our puppet. Cutting out the ears was difficult as I could not create symmetrical ears! We then stuck the facial features on using adhesive. After this, we traced around 20c and 10c coins on black felt to create eyes, I also made eyebrows using this felt to create expression for my puppet! We had then completed the face. After this we used a template to cut out material for the “clothes” for our puppet. It was a lovely metallic velvet and suited our interesting puppets! After cutting out our material, we inserted a small hole in our fabric for the stick which connects to the head.

A quick lunch break and back to the making of our Bunraku puppets. It was now time for the construction of the mechanical parts of the puppet. We were given pieces of wood to sand down and bits of string. We burnt the ends of the string and then clamped them to stop them from fraying. We constructed the “body” of the puppet and then stuck on the head using the special adhesive. Our puppets were finally coming together! The last stage for creating our puppets was the making and creating of our hand for our puppet. We made a template on foam and then cut it out, sticking it on the wood that was used as an arm. We had then finally completed our own Bunraku puppets!

After completing our puppets, it was time to learn some puppeteer skills! We began with a few simple exercises in which we were to move back and forward to a certain point without actually moving our finger (which was on that point). This was actually very difficult! As you moved closer towards your finger you had to pull your arm towards you or it was in a completely different position. Next we had a 40cm cylindrical piece of wood which with which we did the same exercise. After this, we were lined up in a row and we had to pass one puppet to the next person without moving the actual stick, instead, we had to move our body! Unfortunately we were a little slack at this and we ended up in a completely different position from where we originally started! However,

We were finally able to manipulate a proper 3-person Bunraku puppet. We took turns walking it up and down a table. Ashleigh, Ronelle and I were either controlling the legs and feet, right arm and head or body and left arm. This was a very interesting experience as you realised why it took so long to learn how to manipulate a Bunraku puppetry, you never know what the other puppeteer is going to do!