The Text and The Puppets
Unlike kabuki, which emphasizes solely the performance of the actor, bunraku simultaneously demonstrates elements of presentation (directly attempting to invoke a certain response) and representation (trying to express the ideas or the feelings of the author). In this way attention is given to both visual and musical aspects of the marionnettes as well as the performance and the text. In this way each part begins in a ceremony where the tayu engages in faithfully interpreting the text, situated behind an ornate lectern. The text is presented at the debut of each act as well.
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Famous quotes containing the word text:
“The power of a text is different when it is read from when it is copied out.... Only the copied text thus commands the soul of him who is occupied with it, whereas the mere reader never discovers the new aspects of his inner self that are opened by the text, that road cut through the interior jungle forever closing behind it: because the reader follows the movement of his mind in the free flight of day-dreaming, whereas the copier submits it to command.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)