The Kennedy Center has a decades-long commitment to presenting Japanese arts and culture, and annually partners with Japan Society, New York, to feature a touring production. This year’s presentation highlights traditional Japanese puppet theater through the National Theatre, which for the first time in nearly two decades returns to the U.S. in a five-city tour organized by the Society.

Known for its unique puppetry technique developed in the mid-18th century involving three-person manipulation, the National Theatre offers two quintessential masterpiece scenes from its repertoire. The Forest by the Tenjin Shrine scene from The Love Suicides at Sonezaki (Sonezaki Shinju) is a tragic tale written by Chikamatsu Monzaemon, who is often referred to as Japan’s Shakespeare. The Fire Watchtower scene from Oshichi, the Greengrocer’s Daughter (Date Musume Koi no Higanoko) depicts a woman’s desperate act to save her lover. Three puppeteers make each half-life-size doll act out a dramatic narrative in delicate, uncannily realistic movements alongside live chanting and music from a shamisen (a three-stringed instrument resembling a lute or banjo). It’s a distinctive configuration designated by UNESCO as “the Intangible Cultural Heritage” aligned with noh and kabuki. The National Theatre’s U.S. tour is supported, in-part, by ALL NIPPON AIRWYAS CO., LTD., Kikkoman Corporation, and Suntory Holdings Limited.