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Glove Puppetry |
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Glove puppetry in Taiwan takes many forms and is performed with greatest vitality. It can be seen everywhere: in government-sponsored cultural events, where traditional puppets are shown in ornamental wooden towers amid gongs and drums; in temple festivals that feature “golden light” (jinguang 金光) puppet shows with simple painted backdrops, special sound and lighting effects, and medium-sized puppets; and even on television broadcasts of puppet shows with elaborate stage settings, edited sound and lighting, special movements, and large puppets. Glove puppetry was first introduced to Taiwan more than 200 years ago by immigrants from the Quanzhou and Zhangzhou areas of mainland China’s Fujian Province. These classic glove puppet shows originally used only
nanguan 南管 music and Chaozhou-style ballads. However, as time passed, different puppet masters began to add other types of music to glove puppet performances, such as
beiguan 北管, Beijing opera, Japanese pop, Western, and Taiwanese opera music. In addition, playwrights from commercial theaters were introduced and electronic sound and lighting effects added, allowing glove puppetry to break away from its original setting of wooden ornamental towers and stages and evolve into such new forms as “golden light” puppetry and televised glove puppetry. From this long process of change and development, glove puppetry was transformed into a unique style of Taiwanese drama possessing Taiwanese cultural characteristics.
A glove puppet performance is a conglomeration of many different aspects of culture, integrating various dialects, folk music, carving, color painting, embroidery, and puppet manipulation techniques. The puppeteers are the head magicians, whose mastery of the language and hand techniques guides and controls the drama’s overall flow. Meanwhile, the musicians offstage form a miniature orchestra to convey sorrow and bitterness through their wind and string instruments, as well as majesty and tension via their drums and cymbals. The carved wooden puppet heads and stages are a manifestation of ancient engraving techniques, and the embroidered garments worn by the puppets are an expression of history, culture, and the art of embroidery.
The musicians offstage who accompany glove puppet performances use a variety of wind, string, and percussion instruments to convey the feelings and emotions taking place in the show. The puppeteer is the key player in a glove puppet performance, and his training is much more demanding than an ordinary actor’s. The puppeteer must learn how to mimic the tones and phraseology of characters of different age and gender, such as the male leads (sheng 生and mo 末), female lead (dan 旦), supporting male role (jing 淨), jester (chou 丑), and miscellaneous other roles (za 雜). The puppeteer must also learn how to manipulate puppets to perform complex actions—such as writing letters, drinking, and fighting with weapons—and ensure that each puppet does so in its own distinct style and tone. Lastly, the puppeteer must be a storyteller, presenting the entire plot all by himself. Consequently, a puppeteer must be able to “tell a thousand ancient stories from a single mouth, and create a million troops with ten fingers” (一口道盡千古事，十指弄成百萬兵). From the 1950s through the 1970s in particular, Taiwanese glove puppetry incorporated the styles of commercial theaters into its performances. Around this time, playwrights began creating numerous bizarrely shaped characters for both the “golden light” puppetry performed in theaters and televised glove puppetry, giving the puppets unique vocabularies and pet phrases to utter. These phrases soon became popular among the general public, who created fads that jokingly imitated these meaningless catchphrases. Moral advocates eventually criticized the fads, and the government also intervened to prohibit the phenomenon.
The music used in Taiwanese glove puppetry has changed considerably since its inception. During the early stages, performances used fixed tunes and voices, such as traditional nanguan music and Chaozhou-style ballads. In the middle stages, the highly rhythmical music of beiguan and Beijing opera became dominant. After the 1950s, pre-recorded music began to be dubbed into the background for performances given in commercial theaters. With the advent of puppet shows for television in the 1970s, performances not only used dubbed music that had undergone editing and rearrangement, but also gave every puppet specific types of songs and music in order to contrast and exaggerate their roles from other characters.
The small puppets used in classical glove puppetry were roughly 30 centimeters in height and had hand-carved wooden heads from which the character’s age and sex could be determined. In addition, each puppet’s head was colored according to its personality, with black indicating a rough and uncultured character, red representing a loyal and honest one, and green signifying a sinister and diabolical one. The costumes worn by puppets were also symbolic and showed which traditional social class a character belonged to. For instance, aristocrats dressed in gorgeous garments embroidered with animals, birds, and flowers, while the general populace wore plain and simple attire.
In the 1950s, “golden light” puppetry became the primary form of glove puppetry performed in Taiwan. In order to meet the demands of the market, the puppets were enlarged to 45 centimeters, their heads were carved into more grotesque shapes and forms, and their costumes became blander and plainer. In the 1970s, the puppets were enlarged even further for televised puppet shows, doubling to 90 centimeters in height and with a natural head/body ratio. Furthermore, the costumes worn by these puppets no longer placed emphasis on the embroidery, but instead, focused on the puppet’s sex and character.
Before the advent of television in Taiwan in the early 1960s, glove puppet shows were one of the island’s primary forms of entertainment. The sets used for glove puppet performances also underwent many drastic changes over time. Classic glove puppet shows were performed on ornamental wooden towers that were quite narrow. However, by the 1950s, “golden light” puppet shows were being performed on wider stages in front of simple painted backdrops so as to give the larger puppets more room to maneuver. In the 1970s, televised puppetry had left the fixed stage behind and was using complicated, ever-changing, three-dimensional sets for its performances, giving an even greater range of freedom for the puppeteer to manipulate puppets.
Taiwanese glove puppetry is constantly being reinvented. Although traditional, classic glove puppet shows can still be seen in Taiwan, only a small number of long-standing troupes continue to give such performances. Instead, the vast majority of Taiwan’s troupes perform “golden light” puppet shows at temple fairs, with some troupes incorporating brilliant sound and lighting effects while others make-do with dubbed music and pre-recorded lines. Meanwhile, televised glove puppetry remains an oligopoly, with only a few troupes in business and the monopolies usually run by family members. Taiwanese glove puppetry is a drama that is deeply embedded in Taiwanese folk society. In a different era, it served as the Taiwanese people’s best outlet for recreation and relaxation. Today, though no longer Taiwan’s most important drama activity, glove puppetry continues to adjust to changing trends to offer a glamorous and appealing drama. Author: Hsieh Te-hih
CULTURAL TAIWAN |
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