Black Robe Theatre
History and Region
Black Robe Theatre is a traditional type of performance art found on the Blessed Isle, most prevalent Chanos Prefecture and along the northern coast. It can trace its roots at least as far back as the time of the Shogunate.
Performance and Performers
Black Robe Theatre is performed using large puppets (often the scale of full-sized human adults). The puppets have ornately carved hands and heads, the latter featuring a number of mechanical devices to allow their eyes, mouths, eyebrows, and sometimes even noses to move. Certain puppets also have faces which can be flipped around, human features replaced suddenly by demonic ones. Hair and headgear are not attached to the puppets, but mounted for particular roles or moods. The puppet bodies themselves are less detailed, left bare by the puppetmakers and decorated by the puppeteers in colourful printed and embroidered according.
While some minor characters are operated by a single puppeteer, most are operated by a team of three: the most experienced and venerated handles the right hand and the head, the next the left hand, and the most junior operates the legs and feet. The puppeteers stand beside and behind the puppets they operate, wearing black robes and hoods against the black curtain along the back of the stage so they do not stand out next to the bright clothing of the puppets.
Alongside the puppeteers come musicians, playing string instruments sometimes accompanied by drums, and the chanter. The chanter is responsible for all spoken word in the play, voicing all of the characters as well as narration. They differentiate between characters through changes in tone, speed, and pitch, and their facial expressions are carefully arranged to express the visage of the character they voice at any given time. The musicians and chanter wear black robes and sit on a smaller stage in front of the main stage, on the right hand side, though they are not hooded so that they remain more noticeable to the audience.
Black Robe Theatre is sometimes termed the ‘Theatre of Authors’, for unlike casual theatre or even Shogunate classic every detail is recorded in the script: emotion, facial expression, movement of eyes feet are all noted for each character. The chanter’s duty is to replicate the script exactly and unerringly, allowing for no deviation.
Support and Reception
Black Robe Theatre, though an elaborate and exacting form of art, does not attract Dynastic practitioners: allowing no personal contribution from the chanter, and hiding the visage of the puppeteer, it is simply not appealing to the average Dragonblooded artist. Black Robe troupes consist primarily of professional mortal families, citizens who pass down their skills (as puppeteers, chanters, musicians, or puppetmakers) from parent to child across generations. The most acclaimed family of them all is the Agate Patrician Clan of Chanos, which has birthed the theatre style’s finest chanters and puppeteers, and which is a major sponsor of performances, intermarrying more with practitioners of the art than with other Patrician Clans or the Dynastic Houses.
While Dynasts have little interest in participating in the style, many appreciate watching the performances, and a few offer sponsorship to cover the great expense of puppets and practice. Dynastic involvement is in fact vital, as puppets are inherently iconic, and stories involving Anathema or spirits (or even Dragonblooded) risk censure for idolatry from the Immaculate Order. Dragonblooded theatre owners can provide Exalted sanction for performances, demanding higher rents because of it, and House Ragara has proven particularly adept at exploiting this situation: the House sells subscriptions where theatre troupes can ‘rent’ the approval of a Ragara Exalt, in exchange for an up-front payment and a significant share of any profits. Combined with interest paid on the loans needed to fund productions (often also sourced from House Ragara), this leaves only a small amount of jade for the performers and writers of the actual plays.
