Colorful Puppetry

Ⅰ.Long History: From the Beginning

　　Jiang Hailong (1950-2006), male, native of Taixing, Jiangsu. CPC member. National Grade-2 Actor (equal to associate professor). Member of China Puppetry and Shadow Arts Association and member of Jiangsu Association of Dramatists. Part-time director of troupes. Went to Hai’an Children’s Peking Opera Troupe to learn arts in 1958. Passed examination to enter Jiangsu Drama School in 1960. Entered Taixing County Troupe of Puppetry in 1965. Followed the escalation of the troupe to be a member of Yangzhou City Puppet Troupe in 1973. In 1999, the troupe sent him to teach performance in and to take charge of the Puppetry Class, Yangzhou Culture and Art School. Through this work, he made useful contribution to nurturing a new generation of puppet artists.

　　He accumulated abundant experience in stage performance and stage management from his years of art practice. He handled the character of Monkey King in plays like Flaming Mountains, Beating the White-Bone Spirit and the character of Peng Meng in Chang’e Flying to the Moon. His handling was very unique. From 1971 on, he started to work as a part-time director and helped Mr. Chang Jiliang to direct contemporary Peking Operas of Puppetry, namely,Shajiabang the Marsh of Heroes, Wise Conquest of Weihushan and mythological dramas of puppetry, namely, Flaming Mountains and Beating the White-Bone Spirit Three Times as well as children’s drama of puppetry, namely Malan Flower. In 1984, he returned to Jiangsu Drama School to further study director’s art. When he came back to Yangzhou, he helped Chang Jiliang again to rehearse Chang’e Flying to the Moon. In 1995, he aided Jiao Feng to direct The Fairy of Guelder Rose.

　　For many a time, he accompanied performance groups to Japan, USA, Australia, etc. for visits or commercial performance. From 1991 to 1995, he handled the charater of Cao Cao, etc. in a Sino-Japanese film crew for Records of Three Kingdoms.

　　Hua Meixia, female, born in 1947, CPC member, Taixing native, National Grade-1 Actress. Once acted as directed of Jiangsu Association of Dramatists, Vice Chairperson of Yangzhou City Literary Federation and Vice Chairperson of Yangzhou City Association of Dramatist, Member of Yangzhou City CPPCC. Representative of Yangzhou City’s First CPC Congress, Representative of Fourth Conference of Literary Circle.

　　She entered Taixing County Peking Opera Troupe of Puppetry to learn arts in 1962. She acted as the main character in large-scale contemporary dramas, myth dramas, children’s dramas of songs and dancing, etc, during her forty-odd years of artificial life. Her masterpieces included Sister-in-law Aqing in Shajiabang the March for Heroes, Li Tiemei in Red Lantern, Wu Qinghua in Red Women Soldiers, White-Bone Spirit in Beating the White-Bone Spirit Three Times, Princess with Iron Fan in Flaming Mountains, Chang’e in Chang’e Flying to the Moon, Little Tiger in Little Tiger Selling Melons, etc. Hua Meixia won “Prize for Excellent Actors/Actresses” in Yangzhou Prefecture fo her performance of Chang’e in 1981. At the end of the same year, she won “Prize for Performance” from PRC Ministry of Culture at the Second Gala of All-China Puppet and Shadow Puppet Dramas held in Beijing. Selected acts of Chang’e Flying to the Moon was shot into a movie China Puppet Art by Central News Film Studio, and the movie was shown in more than fifty countries and zones. In 1984 summer, Chang’e Flying to the Moon and Beating the White-Bone Spirit Three Times went on a tour show in 34 major and medium-sized cities in Japan for two months. Her “Chang’e” and “White-Bone Spirit” were praised as “first rate in the world” by the audience. She has had many events in international communication and performance. From 1990 t0 1994, she went to Japan, Australia and the USA, etc. For her performance. In 1997, assigned by RPC Ministry of Culture, she went to Pakistan to give lectures. In 1999, at the invitation of Yangzhou City Culture and Art School, she acted as the chief teacher for Puppet Handling and Performance in Puppet Class. She nurtured 35 puppet handling actors/actresses for Zhengzhou City, Henan Province, Nantong City, Jiangsu Province and Yangzhou City, Jiangsu Province. Most of them now have become middle-aged and young backbones in their own troupes. In 2006, she acted as artistic supervisor when Fairy of Guelder Rose was rehearsed again as one of “Jiangsu Province Project of Top Dramas”. For the many years, Hua Meixia’s art achievements have produced profound influence in the art circle, and many native and foreign media have reported or commented her deeds.

　　Jiao Feng, male, born in 1941, a native of Xinghua, Jiangsu. CPC member. National Grade-1 actor. Member of International United Board for Puppetry, member of China Association of Dramatists. Once acted as secretary-general and consultant of China Puppetry and Shadow Arts Association.

　　He was born a family of stringed puppet tradition.At the end of 1950s, he graduated from Jiangsu Drama School and entered Nanjing Puppet Troupe to engage in art work in puppetry. In 1977, he transferred to Yangzhou Troupe of Puppetry where his positions changed from actor, playwright and director, team captain to troupe vice-president. He has been playwright and director since the beginning of 1980s. In his 50 years of art life, he has created and/or directed more than 50 plays such as Birth of Piggie Bajie, Wu Song Killing the Tiger, Monkey King’s Havoc in Dragon’s Palace, Wuxi God Afu, etc. Many of these plays have won National, Provincial and City Prizes and become permanent and ever-lasting plays of the troupe. The play entitled Artistic Collection of Yangzhou Puppetry scripted and directed by him have been put on for 3000 times in China. Some programs in it have been put on in international art festivals and cultural communications. It has won good feedback after being put on. The large-scale children’s myth drama of puppetry Fairy of Guelder Rose directed by him in 1995 has won “Excellent Play Prize” at the Second Jiangsu Drama Festival, “New Play Prize” and “Director Prize” at the Eight Wenhua Drama Festival, “Excellent Play Prize” at the Sixth China Art Festival.

　　In March 1991, China and Japan co-operated in putting on the large-scale puppet play Record of Thee Kingdoms, for which Jiao Feng acted as director from China. In June 1997, assigned by PRC Ministry of Culture, he gave lectures in Pakistan as an expert of puppetry from China, and scripted and directed myth drama of puppetry--Monkey King’s Havoc in Dragon’s Palace. After he retired, he went to Hangzhou of Zhejiang, Wuhan of Hubei, Jinjiang of Fujian, etc. to shoot TV series and script and direct new plays. All this won nice comments.

　　In recent years, has published many scripts like Birth of Piggie Bajie, Monkey King’s Havoc in Dragon’s Pace, New Version of Beating the White-Bone Spirit Three Times, and many academic articles like New Approach to Director Art in Puppet Dramas, Features of Puppet Script Creation, Creation of Dumb Puppet Plays, Director Art and Creation in Puppet Dramas, International Art in Puppetry, etc. in China Drama, Drama Scripts, Monthly Review of Dramas and Films, etc.

　　In March 2002, Jiao Feng was invited as Evaluation Member of the Tenth Wenhua Prize Committee by the PRC Ministry of Culture. Jiao Feng’s personal art data have been listed in the archives of Expert Bank of Art Department of PRC Ministry of Culture and Contemporary Jiangsu Dramatists, and Dictionary of Chinese Dramatists. (See Figure 6).

　　Yan Yu Once acted at CCTV Lantern Festival Joint Evening Party. PRC President Jiang Zemin and other leaders watched her performance. Her dance Rhythm of Fan participated in the Fifth China Art Festival and won “Performance Prize”. Her performance abroad also won high praise for her. Foreign friends and overseas Chinese all comment this way: Chinese puppetry is beyond imagination.

　　Her articles like New Approach to Puppet Females, Permanent Innovation in Puppetry, On Solo Dance ‘Two Fans After a Butterfly’ were published in many journals like Monthly Review of Drama and Films, Artistic Newsletters, Cultural Communication Between China and Foreign Countries, etc.

　　In 1992, at the assignment of the Troupe, Yan Yu started to teach and to act as class master for Puppetry Class, Yangzhou Culture and Art School. She taught conscientiously and strictly, and her devotion passed on the knowledge and skills to the next generation. Now those students have become the main force of the troupe.

　　Feng Baoyi, male, born in 1951. Native of Taixing, CPC member. National Grade-1 Designer for Fine Art of Stages. Member of Association for Fine Artists of Stage, and director for China Puppetry and Shadow Arts Association.

　　He entered the troupe in 1970, and learned his arts in puppet-making from Jia Xiaokui, Yin Daning. He participated in the puppet-making of Red Women Soldiers, Little Tiger Selling Melons, Puppet Collections, etc. He was in charge of and participated in the performance of Birth of Piggie Bajie, Chang’e Flying to the Moon, etc.

　　Wang Yun, female, born in 1959. Native of Yangzhou. National Grade-1 Actress. Member of Jiangsu Association of Dramatists. Yangzhou’s labor model. Since her beginning in art, she has performed in various plays of different styles. She has fostered different drama characters of varied personalities. For instance, the White Lady of beauty and kindness in the large-scale puppet drama Tale of White Snake, the vicious White-Bone Spirit in Beating the White-Bone Spirit Three Times, the cool and capable Prince of Iron Fan in Flaming Mountains, and lively and lovely child king Fubao in Fairy Guelder Rose, etc. Among these, her dubbing for Chang’e won Yangzhou Prefecture Reward; her successful performance for “Fubao” in in Fairy of Guelder Rose won her the honor of Excellent Performance at the Second Jiangsu Drama Festival.

　　In September 2009, Wang Yun’s performance for Fan Rhythm won her “Excellent Performance Prize” at the Second All-China Gold Lion Competition of Puppet and Shadow Puppet Shows.

　　In her performance of Axi in the new play Afu for the troupe, she absorbed the skills of modern ribbon exercises for women and created a novel and unique puppet ribbon dance. That was the integration of ancient art and modern fashion.

　　Wang Yun has been to many countries and zones such as Japan, the USA, Australia, Canada to attend International Art Festivals or participated in cultural communication. Her performance won high praise from internal friends.

　　In the summer of 2005, she learned the skills of“changing faces” of Sichuang Opera on her own expense. After careful research and strenuous exercises, she could skillfully change eight colors of puppets’ faces instantly and performed the skill of pouring out fire by puppets. All this filled in the gap of puppetry in Jiangsu Province. Her articles like “I Handled the Fatty Afu”, “Operating Puppets with High Skills”, “Performance of Puppet Personages”, etc. In China Cultural Newspaper, Monthly Review of Drama and Films, etc. Her biography has been collected in Yangzhou People.

Script-Writing: Legends from Heaven and Earth, the Ancient and the New

　　In all the history of puppetry archives, there was neither professional script-writer nor director. If a puppet band wanted to put on a new play, the band would invite one or two senior literary artists, who will relate the traditional stories to band actors or actresses, and the related contents included the plots, personages, acts and scenes, ordering of drums and gongs, tunes, etc. Such senior artists would copy the words of songs for actors and/or actresses, each to its actor/actress, so it was named an individual piece. Whoever has anything beyond his understanding can go up to ask for explanation. The senior artist(s) would teach those illiterate actors/actresses orally so that they had mastered those words of songs. The puppet band would maneuver the stage and had a little practice so that every one would act and speak in agreement according to the dramatists’ idea. Then they could put on the play. People would respectfully call the senior artist(s) “master(s)”. In reality, the master(s) was/were the anonymous playwright(s) and director(s). Some band masters were long at relating stories, so they did not have to hire other people to do the job. They themselves could act as the playwright(s) and director(s).

　　Puppet Dramas are a special play entry, in which the playwright and the director are closely connected and difficult to separate. People say that they are mutually inclusive, particularly in the scripts written by the director who was formerly an actor/actress in the filed. In their scripts are often seen words like “hints for director”. Sometimes the scripts combined the “literary text” (first-time creation) and “director’s text” (second-time creation) as one, that is the “rehearsal text”.

　　In the 1950s, Yangzhou puppet shows gradually carried our changes in personnel, in plays and in systems, which resulted in inviting directors from outside their troupe. In the 1960s, they gradually produced their own part-time playwrights, directors and had their own self-scripted and self-directed repertory.

1. The Lineage and Reform in Repertory

　　In the middle of the Qing Dynasty, Huiju (Anhui Opera) entered Yangzhou and became the dominant opera types. Puppetry was flowing about Yangzhou. It was inevitable for puppetry to get influenced by Huiju. Also, puppetry artists, who had low social statuses and low education in the feudal society, had no ability to enrich the repertory of puppetry with new plays or new tunes, they had no choice but adopt plays of Huiju, like Rolling Drum Mountains, Scheme of Empty City, Yin and Yang Rivers, Guo Ziyi’s Birthday, etc. This was also evidence of Yangzhou puppetry absorbing materials from Huiju during the Qing Dynasty (See Figure 19).

　　At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the capital city Beijing had a national genre of opera (Peking Opera), so Huiju gradually declined. Therefore, puppetry active in areas like Taixing, Taixian, Rugao and Jingjiang, etc. Took in some tunes of Peking Opera to mix with the original Huiju tunes. A senior artist Zhong Wanshou recollected that he used to sing Huiju tunes when he started his career of puppetry in a band at the age of 11 or 12. He cited the example of Scheme of Empty City for example. Peking Opera sang words like this: “I used to be an idle man in Wolonggang mountains....” but he original Huiju words were like this: “The former sword man jumped down Sandalwood River like a wind, the steed under him rushing faster than a dragon.” This is also the best proof to indicate that Yangzhou Puppetry also absorbed some elements from Peking Opera. The later Peking Opera plays like Running After Han Xin, Xu Ce the City Runner, Long Roads Test Steed Ability, Wujia Slope, etc. were directly welcomed into puppetry, which has enriched the repertory of puppet dramas. This kind of direct borrowing continued to happen until middle 1950s.

　　After the 1957 registration of puppetry bands in the Bureau of Culture and Education, the literary and art workers of the County Cultural Station helped puppetry bands to reform their repertory by rehearsing a new play Singing for Hewanghua to accompany the current situation. In the middle of 1960s when ancient-costume plays were forbidden, these local governments helped those puppetry bands by sending playwrights and directors thereto. These professional worker created and rehearsed modern plays like Seaside Outpost, Yang Gensi the Hero, Alarm Tree, etc. They had many breakthroughs like modeling of puppets, stage fine art, design of special skills, handling art, etc., for instance, planes flying in white clouds in the blue sky, warships breaking through waves, trucks and tanks running along highways and in the fields. All these not only enriched the sense of levels in space, but also made the puppets more vivid. Then they created new plays like Visiting the Daughter, Little Tiger Selling Melons, etc. They also borrowed modern Peking Opera stories like Wise Conquest of Weihushan, Shajiabang the Marsh for Heroes, Sudden Attack on White Tiger Regiment, etc. Some of those plays were displayed at the All-China Gala of Puppets and Shadow Puppets, and won good remarks. In the 1970s, they revised and put on plays like Flaming Mountains, Beating the White-Bone Spirit Three Times, and Chang’e Flying to the Moon. In the 1980s, they produced The Birth of Piggie Bajie. In the 1990s, they produced Fairy Guelder Rose (See Picture 3-1) and in the new century, they produced plays like New Tale of Three Buddhist Monks and Princess Snow-White (See Pictures 20, 21).

2. Features in Scripts

　　Scripts for puppetry and scripts for common plays both have horizontal and vertical dimensions--vertically analyzed, how many plots are included in the scripts; horizontally, the ways of starting, continuation, reversion, and conclusion, i.e. how many phases are included in the scripts. Then these phases are written in acts and scenes. But the scripts for puppetry should have simple and clear threads, requiring one plot for one person. Li Yu, a playwright in the Qing Dynasty, wrote in his works that “too many threads will be very unsuitable for legendary stories.” Puppetry is one drama form which is particularly suitable for legendary performance. Therefore his drama theory of “establishing the main mind and reducing the threads” also applies the creation of scripts for puppetry.

　　Puppet dramas are a type to be put on a small stage for puppetry with the performance of puppets handled by real people (actors/actresses). In its process of artistic creation, real humans expressed their various feelings by handling puppets on the stage after they themselves have experienced those feelings. Therefore, puppet-performance process is the integration of real humans to experience and puppets to manifest what is in the scripts.Since puppets are images with no facial expressions, all their nervus centralis and actions are dependent on actors’ handling. Since puppets are lifeless images, they are bound to have limits. Then, finding their creative features so as to avoid their short-comings and fully show their long-comings have become an important theme.

　　1. Varied Subject Matters

　　The long history of puppet dramas have provided vast spaces for the creation of puppet plays. Concerning the contents of puppetry: all the things in the colorful vast world in the 5000-year-long history can be made into puppet plays,including flowers, birds, worms, fish and toys. Play scripts can cover ancient costumes, modern ones, mythology, fairy tales,fables, skits, dumb plays, etc. The forms may also cover Peking Opera, Western Opera, dramas, dancing,acrobatics, etc. With its various themes and multi-functional performance, puppetry has been very popular artistic flower for audiences, particularly for children.

　　2. Art in Actions

　　In the scripts of plays, the characters that the playwright wants to depict show their thought and personalities through their language and actions. Therefore, some people say that plays are the art in actions. And puppetry needs stronger actions. Actions are the elements that put life in puppets. These days, the mouth, the eyes, the tongue, the brows of a puppet is movable, but such movements are merely in part of the puppet, and the movements are neither continuous nor subtle. Hoping that puppets can have stressed and relaxed facial muscles is unnecessary and impossible. This will will require the words and tunes in the scripts have the features of actions. Puppets can use its own actions to fill up the inadequacy of its facial expressions so as to represent the characters’ thought and emotions. Lengthy and complicated dialogues and sets of songs in tunes with few actions is improper. There are many examples of using actions to depict emotions and characters in pole-end puppetry. In the pole-end puppet drama Beating the White-Bone Spirit Three Times, Monkey King was reproached and demoted back to Huaguo Mountains by Master Monk Tang because Monkey King had beaten the White-Bone Spirit three times. When Monkey King said farewell to his Master Monk Tang with the lowly-flowing music rhythms,he went towards Master Monk Tang step by step only to be refused by Master Monk Tang. Monkey King kow-towed from the right and from the left, but Master Monk Tang turned away from him. So Monkey King still failed to kow-tow to his master. He had no way out but to split himself into several Monkey Kings and kow-towed from all around Master Monk Tang. Then he embraced goodbyes to Piggie Bajie and Monk Sha, his co-workers under Master Monk Tang. Then he stamped his foot and slowly rode a cloud to go away. In this piece of the drama, the actors used the actions of the puppets like “walk”, “kow-tow”, “wipe tears”, “embrace”, “weep”, “stamp foot”, “somersault”. These actions fully represented Monkey King’s being wronged, love for his master and his colleagues.Deeply touched by Monkey King’s emotions, the audience also shed tears. These silent actions had heart-shaking artistic power.

　　In 1960, Yangzhou Puppet Troupe rehearsed modern puppet dramas like Shajiabang the Marsh for Heroes, Wise Conquest of Weihushan Mountains, etc. In the latter drama, the character Yang Zirong’s performance was very vivid. In the former drama, a chain of actions--Sister Aqing scratches a match, Commander-in-Chief Hu Chuankui and Staff-General Diao Deiyi accept cigarettes, light their cigarettes, and blow out smoke--were so lifelike that they display superb technique in the art of puppetry. All this induced praise from the audience. Puppetry was not very suitable for dramatic scenarios like the execution field in The Red Lantern, so this never happened.

　　3. Innocence of Puppets

　　The structure of puppet scripts lay emphasis on interest and exaggeration. Here, the word “interest”refers to the combination of “sensibility” and “innocence of puppets”. Innocence refers to the naivety of puppets in their actions and movements.

　　Besides, the educational and recreational functions of puppets should never be ignored. In children’s minds, those puppets on the stages are little souls with their flesh and blood and children attribute their own feelings to the puppets. Children love toys, picture books and story-telling. Puppets in puppet dramas are individual “living” toys in their eyes; all the scenarios in puppet dramas are flowing picture books; and a puppet drama itself is a lively story with images. Puppet dramas with themes suited for children can provide service for children and can educate children in amusement. This is especially significant if compared with other artistic types.

　　In short, puppet dramas stress representation with few words but more actions, with more imagination and wider scope of themes, with distinct intention and flouring puppet naivety.

3. Dumb Puppet Dramas

　　According The Ocean of Words, “dumb show” or “mummery”originated from martial dramas of warfare and hunting in ancient times. In third century BCE, formal mummers appeared and performed with masks on their faces and vocal accompaniment from a chorus. Mummery first appeared as a silent artistic performance which derived from ancient India and ancient Egypt. As the history went on, mummery developed a type of play for the whole world. International Mummery Festival was held in Shanghai, China, in March 1994. Some famous Chinese mummers and international mummery artists went onstage to provide their performance, which was welcomed by Shanghai audiences. Eating Chicken, a mummery skit, attracted millions of hearts from all over China with its vivid and humorous representation. Since then, mummery has been popular in China. Yangzhou puppet dramas, besides imitating plays, singing and dancing, acrobatics, and local dramas, also has started creation and performance of dumb puppet shows since 1989. (See Figure 22)

　　In spite of the difficulty, the puppet circle strove for its excellence. In 1989, the internal drama market was not in a good state, and puppetry was also in such a state. It was the consciousness of striving for a life that put the authors’ eyesight onto the present audience and they tried to suit themselves to the audience. Practice shows that only by suiting plays to the audience can plays draw and attract more audience. Just as a famous playwright Qu Liuyi put it, “Playwrights must fully understand the audience as the aesthetic subjects, i.e. Their requirements, interest, and psychological activities in aesthetics, so that they can adjust themselves to the audience. If their aesthetic requirements, interest and psychological activities are ignored, they will to go the plays.”Director Jiao Feng with Yangzhou Puppetry Troupe has created and rehearsed more than a dozen dumb puppet shows such as Wu Song Kills the Tiger, A Girl Slaughters a Python, Piggie Bajie Begging a Meal, Enthusiasm in Ducks (See Figure 23), The Fatty and Mosquitoes. All these dumb puppet shows induced good comments from the audience. For instance, from March 9 to April 24, 1992, Yangzhou Puppet Troupe had its performance for a succession of 45 days in Nanjing. They condensed the above-mentioned plays and other plays into one play entitled “Gist of Puppetry”. The play was put on for successively 154 times, which attracted more than 100,000 people as the audience. This won the effect of “more than 100 performance times and fame all over the Stone City”. It was particularly welcome by children. These dumb puppet shows have become reserved in repertory of the troupe and the main plays for cross-cultural communication with other countries. For instance, Wu Song Kills the Tiger, A Girl Slaughters a Python, etc. have been put on in international art festivals in Japan, Australia and Iran. They were also praised by international friends and scholars as well as experts as “first-rate art”. The audience were deeply emersed in the plays.

　　The reason dumb puppet shows can attract some many viewers is that it has a lofty art status. The newly scripted dumb puppet show A Girl Slaughters a Python was a legendary tale devoted to the theme of “heroes winning their fame when young”, and it was widely retold in China. The little heroine Li Ji in the play was only 14 years old in the ancient times. The young girl had a lofty ambition to brave herself into the python’s den and to kill it for the sake of the people. Her heroic deed won people’s thousand years eulogy. In order to manifest her beautiful figure, the playwright and director designed “sword dancing”according the features of the play. At the first crow of the rooster, the scene of morning drills appeared on the stage: in the early sunbeam, Li Ji appeared as a paper-cut figure. As the lights turned brighter, Li Ji turned around to face the audience in the martial form, holding a sword. With the music, she started to practice her sword. Sometimes her sword waved slowly, sometimes it whirled like water splashing. All this, with her comely shape, paves the way for the theme of the play. When fighting the python, Li Ji jumped, hopped, dodged, and thrusted. All these actions revealed her heroic intention of forgetting everything and forging forward to rid the people of their harmful pests. The combination of such actions accomplished the molding of her great character. In order to bring the play to the presentdaysensation, the playwright of this dumb puppet show created a scenario of “All Snakes Crazily Dancing”, which has adopted some current dancing concepts and is suited the current audience’s aesthetic interest and psychology. This dancing scenario played up the special atmosphere of python’s den and added to the artistic touch of the play by utilizing the musical rhythm of Disco and flashing lights, and by making the colorful small snakes writhe, coil, stretch, and fly up. The creation of dumb puppet shows requires the experts to know well the features of such a genre.Clear rhythms and large-scale actions are among the features. Puppets have their own godsend strengths in representing all things and persons and happenings around them in the universe. But puppet dramas rely on puppets, which also presents some limits of the genre, for instance, the puppets having no facial expressions, it being difficult to develop psychology of the characters, and monologues and songs having to be concise, etc. However, dumb shows can utilize actions to express the plots of the plays and represent the happiness, anger, sadness, and peaceful minds of the characters. This is the long-coming of the genre, for instance, a lowered head to indicate meditation or shyness, shaking head to indicate unwillingness or having no way out, waving hands and feet to indicate a jolly mood, shaking shoulders and weeping to indicate suppressed anger or sadness, etc.

　　Second, exaggeration in performace is also a good method for the naivety of dumb puppet shows to express the development of the plays.The content of the new dumb puppet show In the Boxing Ring is to represent the friendship between international boxers. In the play, a strong but short African boxer and a tall blond boxer had a match. The African’s one blow turned the blond man’s head 360 degrees. Then the blond man’s blow knocked the African’s head into his chest.The African’s fiance--a blonde girl--screamed with tears springing up (two fountains out of the eyes of the puppet).Then she, joining her efforts with the blond boxer, pulled her lover’s head out of his chest like a turnip from the ground. Then the African boxer, regaining his vitality all of a sudden, continued in the tense and humorous boxing competition....

　　Third, interest. Apart from educating function, literary art has entertaining function as its key function. In this aspect, the interesting function of puppet shows is irresplaceale. The puppet mummery Fatty and Mosquito has particular interest. The director let Fatty make a bed on the screen (the screen to shade off handling actors) and sleep on it. Instantly, he snored loudly. The hand puppet’s belly rose and fell with the snoring, which was very interesting. Just at the time, a mosquito buzzed and gave Fatty a bite, which made Fatty moved twice. When the mosquito bit him again, he shrunk his head into the quilt, but his plump feet went out of the quilt. The mosquito bit him again, but his snore continued. Only his two feet rubbed each other because of the itch. But the mosquito did not stop biting, so Fatty was really annoyed. He rose like a carp jump out of water, sat up all of a sudden. In an unclear mind, he took up a submachine gun and shot at the mosquito...This tickled the audience into laughter.

4. Continuation and Innovation

　　The repertory of Yangzhou Puppet Troupe was very rich and its theme is very wide. In the past, those puppet bands had lengthy dramas revised from Records of Three Kingdoms, The Outlaws at the Marsh, Journey to the West, Tale of the Tang Dynasty, Enlisting of Gods and Goddesses, Generals of the Yang Family, etc. And dozens of playlets like Little Cowherd, and The Jar-Repairer. After the founding of the official troupe in 1957, they put on new plays like Beating the White-Bone Spirit Three Times, Tale of White Snake, Qin Xianglian the Wretched Woman at the Great Wall, etc. In 1960s and 1970s, they put on current plays like Outpost at Seashore, Little Tiger Selling Melons, Shajiabang the Reed Marsh for Heroes, Wise Conquest of Weihushan, etc. in the form of Peking Opera puppet dramas.In the 1980s, they put on Chang’e Flying to the Moon. In the 1990s, they put on The Fairy of Guelder Rose. In the new century, they put on New Tale of Three Monks and ball-joint doll drama Princess White-Snow, etc. All this is a process of elevation of Yangzhou puppet shows in their performance.

　　The clever ancient Yangzhou puppetry artists have wisely selected repertory by developing puppet art the full and avoiding the demerits of puppet art. Therefore, this has put special artistic charm in its performance. Take Gaolaozhuang Piggie Bajie’s Wife’s Home Village in Peking Opera Puppetry, for example. The artists added “transmorphesis, betting”, etc. to the drama. When Piggie was taken advantage of by Monkey King in the play, the former changed into a centipede, a weasel, and a tiger. Monkey King instantly changed himself into a rooster, a dog, and.... All the animals of Monkey King could defeat the animals of Piggie. So it was very interesting and reasonable for Monkey King to defeat Piggie. This more fully carries the features of puppet art, which nails the attention of the audience.

　　Yangzhou puppet shows can be passed down to today, and can develop rapidly because of its continuation and changes of the repertory and its application of natural laws:

　　(1) They had adaptation to ancient costume Peking Opera, which was suitable for adult viewers.

　　Prior to 1990s, Yangzhou Puppet Shows were adapted for the viewing of adults, with such dramas in the tune of Peking Opera as Shajiabang the Marsh for Heroes, Wise Conquest of Weihushan, Surprise Attacks on White Tiger Regiment,and other dramas like Beating the White-Bone Spirit Three Times, The Flaming Mountains, Monkey King Persecutes Heavenly Mouse, Chang’e Flying to the Moon, Birth of Piggie Bajie, Tale of White Snake, Monkey King’s Havoc in Dragon’s Palace, etc. All these plays were put on in Jiangsu, Henan, Shandong, Anhui, Zhejiang, and other provinces continuously. The plays won great fame along the Yangtze River. Some of the plays were put on in Japan.

　　(2) Children’s drama that are suited to the youngsters’ aesthetic interest.

　　In the 1990s, they scripted and put on The Fairy of Guelder Rose. Since it was rehearsed in 1995, it has been put on for ten years, 2000 times, attracting more than one million people to the theater. This is a rare achievement for puppetry.

　　(3) Cartoon Dramas that suited to children’s appreciation.

　　Since the beginning of the new century, the troupe has put on puppet plays in the form of cartoon plays, such as New Tale of Three Monks, ball-joint doll drama Princess White-Snow, which greatly aroused the interest of the youngsters.

Directors: Personnel to Direct Actors and Puppets Together

　　Doctor Marek Art Department head of the former Czechoslovakian Central Troupe of Puppetry said: “Puppets are no miniatures or substitutes of humans. They are lovely, smart and typical symbols with individual lives. The sensibility, weak points, love desires and fates of humans created by these puppets have subtle, eccentric and phantomlike representations.” This is a transparent and accurate definition of the significance of puppet art. Puppets, as a unique art type, should make full use of features and merits to create lovely, exquisite symbols and images with individual lives. This sense has defined the important functions of directors.

1. Amplification of Features

　　The rehearsal procedures of puppet dramas are similar to those of common dramas. It also requires study and analysis of the scripts and artistic reconstruction as well designs in music and stage fine-art, etc. The differences lie in two aspects: the making of puppets and the pre-rehearsal of actors before the rehearsal of puppets. After the puppet-making tasks are assigned to puppet-makers, the director can start to make arrangements for the puppet show. According to the artistic layout, the director asks the actors to feel the roles and recreate the personalities of the characters by their features in the play. If the play in ancient costumes, “four skills and five practices” must put into reality. Though the puppet actors may not put every action into where they should be, the actors must have a general knowledge of it. Only in this way can they handle the puppets for re-establish the figures of puppets in the viewers’ minds.

　　The puppet family is big one, including puppets on pole-ends, stringed puppets, hand-puppets, plastic puppets, iron-limb puppets and Sichuan Province big puppets (of similar size to real humans), etc. They all have their own features. Amongst them, plastic puppets are especially worth mentioning: their flesh and muscles, facial features can all represent their feelings. So they look realistic and lifelike....

　　Similar to drama directors, puppetry directors must also maneuver all artistic measures to foster the characters in the plays. In the scene of “stealing herbs” of Tale of White Snake, a traditional large-scale puppet drama, Director Jiao Feng comprehensively employed three forms of puppets, i.e. pole-end, stringed and hand puppets, and this reached a good artistic outcomes. When Lady Fair (White Snake) was trying to defend her stolen herbs against Crane Boy, she was not his rival and tried to escape. The Crane Boy immediately chased her. Then the scene changed to behind a big rock: there appeared Lady Fair and Crane Boy (hand-puppets). This created an artificial effect like a distant-shot in the movie. Though hand-puppets were small, it provided a chance to be handled by one actor. The two characters fought against each other very heatedly and flawlessly, which promotes the play to its climax. When Lady Fair and Crane Boy rolled down a slope, their performance was changed onto pole-end puppets. When Crane Boy was ready to thrush his sword into Lady Fair, there came a voice: “Disciple, stop your sword!” Old Divinity South Pole (stringed puppet) came down from the sky to rescue Lady Fair. In the same scene, there were changes from pole-end puppets to hand-puppets and to stringed puppets. This change was very natural and interesting. In the stage scene, people could find varied perspectives like the sky and the earth, the distance and the instancy.In another puppet show Havoc in Heaven, the Monkey King who was secretly drinking nectar and eating divine peaches had his mouth and nose,ears and muscles all movable because had a plastic face (the same making as dolls sold in the streets). This produced a humorous and funny and even tickling effect on people.

　　In puppet dramas, those who perform on stage are puppets. Those actors who are handling and speaking for puppets should be invisible to viewers. In puppet dramas, people lay another stage on the large stage. Since the puppet stage has its unique features, the maneuvering of the stages is different from the maneuvering of opera stages. Yangzhou Troupe of Puppetry mainly uses pole-end puppets, whose real actors are handling them from below. Below the lesser puppet stage there is a space for actors to handle their puppets. So it was flexible and convenient for them to operate that way. Under different conditions, one actor can continuously operate several characters. In the mythological drama Piggie Bajie’s Birth, Monkey King transmorphesized himself into a false girl to haunt Piggie’s marriage room. In order to avoid Piggie’s wangling, “she” squatted down to disappear when Piggie threw himself at “her”. Almost at the same time, at the other end of hte stage, another identical beautiful “girl”appeared. Before Piggie could reach “her”, “she” suddenly vanished. Just at the same moment, a third “she” appeared behind Piggie.... This kind of maneuvering was phantomlike and instant, which indicated that Monkey King was smart and naughty like a real monkey. In reality, the three “girls” who appeared three times were handled by two actors. It seemed that, when the first false girl disappeared, the second false girl appeared.

　　Since the puppet stage (lesser stage) is 1.7 meters tall, and the original stage (the larger stage) also has a height, the audience have to look up at the stage when they view Yangzhou pole-end puppetry dramas. So the area for stronger effect of puppetry is with two meters in width. If the performance is further away, the puppets will seem shorter (since the audience have to raise their heads to watch, the horizontal line has some sloping degrees). Therefore, when playing the puppets nearer to the skyline, the actors must raise the puppets little higher to make up for this demerit.

　　Another feature of puppets is their humorous feature. Puppets operated by humans will always be humorous. Puppets themselves are lovely toys and handicrafts. When they play the part of humans with vivid vitality, the views will surely feel it funny. Puppet dramas are not restricted by opera types, opera tunes and themes, therefore, their reportory for performance is very varied, and their threads for creation are also multiple and wide. Puppet dramas are suitable for plays targeted towards adults, children and infants. Today’s people not only need unpredictable mythological dramas, but need more dramas closely related to them and the related to the times. Such artistic types as moving cartoons, comic talks and farce all give the audience long-timed enjoyment. But puppet dramas seldom has reportoire of modern themes and humor of modern times. But, in reality, puppet dramas can surely take advantage of its sculpts and its more exaggerated and transmorphesized performance. Such dramas can also make full use of the techniques of cartoons, mangas to render philosophy more image-related and concrete. This will will perform the function that other types of art can hardly achieve. If the choice of materials are proper and the performing technique is unique and novel, such dramas will be welcomed by the audience.

　　In the drama Piggie Bajie Was Born, the head of Bare-Foot Fairy can stretch and shrink, and can also swing on his shoulders. This shows the fun and humorous personalities of the clown-like characters in the play. When Piggie Bajie was carrying a false girl (actually Monkey King) across a single-log bridge, the director made the bridge turn 360 degrees around.This represents the absurd and bizzar flavor of the figures in mythology as well as their immortal features. All this provides fun for the audience.