Benshi star Ichiro Kataoka will narrate two silent masterpieces at Japan Society, with live shamisen music by Sumie Kaneko
THE BENSHI TRADITION AND THE SILVER SCREEN: A JAPANESE PUPPETRY SPIN-OFF
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Thursday, December 12, and Friday, December 13, $22-$31, 7:30
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org
Japan Society’s “Ningyo! A Parade of Puppetry” began in September with Basil Twist’s mind-blowing Dogugaeshi and continued in October with National Bunraku Theater’s Date Musume Koi no Higanoko (Oshichi, the Greengrocer’s Daughter) and Sonezaki Shinju (The Love Suicides at Sonezaki) and in November with Sachiyo Takahashi/Nekaa Lab’s One Night in Winter and The Peony Lantern.
The fall series concludes with “The Benshi Tradition and the Silver Screen: A Japanese Puppetry Spin-Off,” two evenings of live music by Sumie Kaneko on the shamisen and benshi narration by contemporary “movie talker” Ichiro Kataoka, in Japanese with English subtitles, accompanying a pair of rarely screened silent masterpieces. On December 12, they will perform to Daisuke Ito’s 1927 jidaigeki A Diary of Chuji’s Travels, starring Denjirō Ōkōchi; originally a four-hour triptych, only 111 fragmented minutes now remain. That will be followed on December 13 by Shozo Makino’s 1910-17 ninety-minute work-in-progress Chushingura, an incomplete early cinematic adaptation of the story of the 47 ronin featuring Matsunosuke Onoe, who is said to have appeared in a thousand films by the time of his death in 1926 at the age of fifty, though only six survive, at least in part.
Both events will be preceded by a lecture at 6:30 by Princeton University professor Dr. Junko Yamazaki; there will be a postshow private gathering for artists and Japan Society members on December 12 and an artist Q&A on December 13. The previous productions in “Ningyo! A Parade of Puppetry,” being held in conjunction with the Japan Society exhibition “Bunraku Backstage,” sold out in advance, so act quickly if you want to catch what should be two rare, unique experiences.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]