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A Brief Introduction of Chinese Puppetry
Rod puppets were popular in Guangdong, Fujian, and Guizhou provinces during the
Ming Dynasty. Rod puppet shows with many types of roles were widely distributed
in China during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). They could be found in Hangzhou
City (of Zhejiang Province), in the provinces of Guangdong, Sichuan, and Shanxi,
and in Beijing Municipality among many other places. Rod puppets in Sichuan came
in three sizes - large, medium, and small. Rod puppets in Shanxi were divided
into central and southern Shanxi type.
Rod puppetry in Beijing was actually another form of Peking Opera. The art
was introduced to the royal palace and was therefore popularly referred to as
dataigongxi (grand palace theater). There were four well-known troupes in
Beijing including the Jinli and Siyi troupes. They often invited outstanding
Peking Opera artists such as Jin Xiushan and Liu Yongchun to provide background
narration and songs for the shows.
String puppet shows were already
highly developed in Shanxi's Heyang County during the Ming Dynasty. During the
reigns of the Qing emperors Qianlong and Jiaqing (1736-1820), they were very
popular in more than 30 counties in the border areas between Shanxi, Shaanxi,
and Henan provinces, and in Heyang alone there were over 30 string puppet
troupes. String puppets also enjoyed popularity in Hangzhou and Quanzhou and in
Fujian's Shanghang County in particular during the reign of the Qing Emperor
Guangxu (1875-1908). During the last years of the Qing Dynasty, string puppet
troupes from Jiangsu Province toured Southeast Asia and were well received.
Wire puppets began to take shape near the end of the Qing Dynasty
and became very popular in eastern Guangdong and western Fujian.
Gunpowder-activated puppet shows were performed in Pucheng County of Shanxi
Province during the Fire God Festival. Their representative plays in Qing times
were The Goddess of Heaven Scatters Flowers, Wu Song Overpowers the Tiger, and
Monkey King Subdues the White Bone Demon Three Times.
After the 1911 Revolution, cultural circles in Shanghai took the lead in
producing modern plays. During the 1930s, in an attempt to reform traditional
puppet shows by introducing modern stage design, lighting, and sound effect, Yu
Zheguang and others created and staged new puppet shows such as Wen Tianxiang,
The Swan, and The Eternal Grief. As a result, the scope of subject matter for
puppet shows and the space for their performances were enlarged.
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