Rakugo

I don't know if anyone else had the experience of storytellers coming to their elementary schools. But my school had a fair amount of them. The majority of them were native American stories. With puppet shows, and shadow shows or acting it out, or even just vocal performances.

Japan too, has a great many of these kinds of performances. They are called rakugo. They are a story that displays some sort of moral in the end, though not always. They are more known for being amusing. Though it is an odd sort of humor, where it is not really funny as in hilarious, but funny in a pitying sort of way meanwhile, making your life also feel better. I know it is strange to say.
Recently, I had the honor of meeting a rakugo artist and listening to him practice his tale. He was a Japanese man performing in English for an event to be put on at the Kyoto multi-cultural center September 29th. This man's story was one of death, and making deals with death. And of some poor sod who had a terrible life any way you shaped it and so he made a deal with a shinigami(god of death - in Japan there are multiple shinigamis). The man of course got greedy, almost like in Aseops tales, and tricked a poor shinigami. And well I won't ruin the story for you!
But here are a few examples of other rakugos preformed in English.