Stanleigh Jones's The Bunraku Puppet Theatre of Japan: Honor, Vengeance, and Love in Four Plays of the 18th and 19th Centuries provides four lively translations of late bunraku plays prefaced by an introduction that fully and clearly describes their significance in the contexts of both the theater and culture of Edo-period Japan. This volume brings together both old and new translations of scenes and entire plays of the jidaimono (period pieces) category written between 1769 and 1832, the waning years of bunraku's “golden age” (p. 2). Jones chose these plays or acts for a number of reasons: they have stood the test of time and are still part of the active bunraku repertoire, they are particularly well-wrought works of dramaturgy, and his own experience as a viewer of all four allows him to present staging and stage directions fully. His admiration for, and deep understanding of, the plays comes through in his lyrical, and at places moving, translations. Combined with the extremely readable and thorough introduction, these make for a volume that will be useful for teachers and students of topics as broad as world theater or as narrow as Edo-period culture; both the general reader and the Japanologist will find The Bunraku Puppet Theatre of Japan a satisfying glimpse into the world of late-Edo theater.

Jones's introduction situates the four plays in the contexts of the development of the bunraku theater as well as the fruitful late-Edo rivalries between competing bunraku theaters (the Takemoto-za and the Toyotake-za). Although brief, the introduction covers many important issues, outlining not only conventions of the theater, but also the key changes that differentiate these later works from those of the much better-known oeuvre of Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653–1725), including the increasing sophistication of the actual puppets, which in turn changed the roles of narrator and puppeteer (p. 4).

The four pieces Jones translates are all set in the past. Two, “Moritsuna's Camp” and Vengeance at Iga Pass, recast actual historical events in the more distant past—a common technique used to avoid the Tokugawa shogunate's strict censorship of dramatizing actual events. The first comprises one act from the longer play The Genji Vanguard in Ōmi Province, while the latter is the only full play translated in the volume. The other two excerpts, “The Mountains” from Mount Imo and Mount Se: Precepts for Women and the first four acts of The True Tale of Asagao, are fanciful stories placed in historical settings. As Jones notes, all four embrace the common theme of the tension between duty owed one's lord and one's affection for loved ones. We also find in these works many other common tropes of the bunraku (and kabuki) theaters: the reappearance of lost children or parents (Iga, Asagao); sacrifice of one's child to serve one's duty (“Moritsuna's Camp,” Iga); suicide or near-suicide for love (“The Mountains,” Asagao); and convoluted plot twists (all four plays). Jones's selections give a good sense of both the dramatic pathos of the acts and abridgements of plays that became so beloved that they have long been performed alone (“Moritsuna's Camp,” “The Mountains,” Asagao) as well as the complex plots of longer works of the period (Iga Pass). By moving from vignettes to a full play and an abridgement, he also eases the reader unfamiliar with bunraku into the dramatic complexity of bunraku during the final decades of its prominence as the Edo period's favorite theater.

The short introductions to each play frame them individually by providing historical context, information on the playwrights involved in its composition, and a synopsis of the characters and action. But they also lead the reader deeper into the milieu of the late-Edo bunraku theater. Chikamatsu Hanji had a hand in authoring three of the plays, but the individual introductions describe the variety of co-authors with whom he worked, as well as the reception of each play in Osaka (where Hanji wrote for the Takemomoto-za) and Edo, as well as their influences on and from kabuki. Starting from what is arguably the simplest plot (“Moritsuna's Camp”), Jones gradually introduces new themes and complexities of plot as he builds to Iga. He concludes with Asagao, a play originally written for kabuki and then adapted to bunraku, a reverse in the usual direction of influence. His comments about performance (the improvised walk through the audience in the kabuki version of Iga [p. 83] or the vocal virtuosity of the “laughing powder” scene in Asagao [p. 239]) underline both the vitality of these arts and how they benefited from each other.

The Bunraku Puppet Theatre of Japan is a strong contribution to both scholarship on and translation of Edo theater. The translations are fluid and lively, with enough notes to please the scholar but placed at the end of the volume to allow for fluent reading. It will be a great tool for both classroom and research use.