Audiences at the Tokyo National Theater are being treated to two full-length Bunraku masterpieces being staged in its smaller auditorium this month.
The first play, at 11 a.m., is "Futatsu Chocho Kuruwa Nikki (Chogoro and Chokichi and Their Diary of the Pleasure Quarters)." A sewamono or "realistic play," this was written by Takeda Izumo and collaborators in 1749.
The drama begins with an illicit love affair between a married man, Yamazaki Yogoro, and Azuma, a beautiful courtesan working at Shinmachi in Osaka.