author
Izumo Takeda
1691–1756
A leading dramatist of Japan’s puppet theater golden age, he helped shape some of bunraku’s most enduring classics. Working at Osaka’s Takemoto Theater, he became closely linked with the great historical plays that still define the tradition.
1 Audiobook
Chushingura; Or, The Treasury of Loyal Retainers
by Izumo Takeda, Shoraku Miyoshi, Senryu Namiki
About the author
Born in 1691, Takeda Izumo II was a Japanese playwright and theater manager associated with the Takemoto Theater in Osaka. Reliable reference sources describe him as an important figure in ningyō jōruri, or puppet theater, and note that he succeeded Chikamatsu Monzaemon as a leading dramatist there.
He is best known for his role in the three famous history plays often called the great masterpieces of the bunraku repertory: Sugawara and the Secrets of Calligraphy (1746), Yoshitsune and the Thousand Cherry Trees (1747), and The Treasury of Loyal Retainers (1748). Standard reference works describe these plays as collaborations, which fits the working methods of early modern Japanese theater.
Takeda Izumo II died in 1756. Even centuries later, his name remains tied to the height of Osaka puppet drama and to works that continue to introduce readers and audiences to the emotional power of bunraku.