What is a puppet show?

There are three kinds of traditional puppet shows in Taiwan Province Province: puppet show, puppet show in the palm of your hand and shadow play. /kloc-After the 9th century, these three puppet shows developed with the migration of Han immigrants from China, Fujian and Guangdong, among which the puppet shows in Taiwan Province Province developed the most. The creation of new culture in Taiwan Province Province is a glorious and positive expression of national integration. The change of Taiwan Province provincial culture is a kind of negative sorrow under the oppression of foreign political forces, and the performance culture of Taiwan Province provincial puppet show is developed in such a complex environment.

Compared with China's puppet shows, Taiwan Province's puppet shows not only have many changes and innovations in performance skills, but also are completely different from China's puppet shows in opera music, performance forms, drama stories and aesthetic tastes, just as art and culture change with different social forms, humanistic components and different political environments, which is natural. Although the population composition of Taiwan Province Province is mainly Han Chinese from China, the early culture of Taiwan Province Province is basically immigrants from China. However, after 300 years of political confrontation with the mainland, conditional and selective cultural absorption, and the baptism of ocean culture (including the sea power in Western Europe in the rising stage of capitalism, the construction of Taiwan Province Province, the "southward base" during the Japanese colonial period, and the influence of postwar American culture), the ethnic combination and cultural form of modern Taiwan Province Province have long been different from that of China. However, Taiwan Province Province, because of its special position in marine geography and transportation, is located in the vast offshore area of Chinese mainland, and it is inevitably subjected to arbitrary political oppression by Chinese imperialism. Just like the imperialist mentality in the glorious circle of Japanese Greater East Asia, it thinks that Taiwan Province Province and North Korea, as well as Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam and Thailand, are all imperialist enclaves. The political forces from China are particularly obvious to the development and change of New Taiwan Province Province. The biggest influence on the puppet show culture in Taiwan Province Province is also the interference of political forces from the Qing Empire in China, the Japanese Empire and the Chiang Kai-shek regime in China in three different periods.

The early puppet shows in Taiwan Province Province followed the original model of China. However, with the gradual prosperity of Taiwan Province society and the special economic, cultural and political background, as well as the creative reform of many outstanding artists, Taiwan Province puppet show has also derived an artistic image and appreciation interest with strong local characteristics, which is constantly changing. They not only created the unique artistic culture of the puppet show in Taiwan Province Province, but also created their own performing art styles and created schools to educate people. There are still puppet artists in China and Taiwan Province Province. When puppet shows were first introduced to Taiwan Province Province, local artists were still absorbing their performances and contents, so they were generally called "cage-bottom shows", which means that these shows were handed down from generation to generation in a box (called a cage in Taiwanese). At the beginning of the 20th century, it was the beginning of the localization of puppet shows in Taiwan Province Province. Due to the popularity of puppet shows, the original drama stories can't meet the expectations of the audience. Artists began to perform popular Peking Opera with puppet shows. There are more martial arts dramas with compact plots and high music. "Beiguan Puppet Show" quickly replaced the original performance form of Chinese puppet show. During the development process, local artists added it. Later performances were mostly adapted from Zhang Hui's romantic novels, except for the use of Beiguan opera music. This performance mode basically depends on the artist's own understanding of puppet show art and personal artistic and literary accomplishment. Artists call the puppet show adapted from this novel "novel play", which is divided into several different forms and contents. Puppet shows adapted from historical novels are called historical dramas, such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Romance of Sui and Tang Dynasties and Biography of Eastern Zhou Dynasty. Adapted from chivalrous novels, it is called "swordsman drama", such as Elvis Presley. The cases mainly handled by honest officials are called "case-solving dramas", such as Bao Gong case, Shi Gong case and Gong Peng case. However, the novel script actually has many attributes in the plot content. For example, although Bao Gongan is a case-solving drama, it also includes "Swordsman Drama", "Family Drama" and "Love Drama", as well as some historical figures and stories. Therefore, the average puppet show artist divides the novel scripts into these categories, mainly because there is no special fixed performance mode in terms of the content of the performance at that time, because each artist's artistic expression method is different, and some people are good at it. As far as the popular stage of novel puppet show is concerned, there are so-called "five pillars" in Tainan puppet show circle: Dai Yi, the founder of Huwei Wuzhou Garden, is good at case-solving drama and poetry; Erxiang, from Luo's Xin Xing Ge, is good at performing swordsman drama; Sanxian, Huang Tianquan, founder of Yuquan Pavilion in Guandi Temple in Tainan, known as "Xianzaishi", is good at martial arts. Sitian, Hu Jinzhu, and "Tian Zi's" in Ma Dou's Jinhua Pavilion in Tainan are good at comedy; Wu Chong and Lu Chongyi of the Fuxing Society in Donggang, Pingtung, are good at amorous dramas (love dramas).

Since the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, puppet shows in Taiwan Province Province have begun to create artistic images and appreciation interests with strong local characteristics, and their development and influence have surpassed those of other operas in Taiwan Province Province. Puppet shows have spread almost all over Taiwan Province and become the most popular operas. Until the end of World War II, the Japanese colonial government forcibly carried out the "Imperial People's Movement" and forcibly performed the "Imperial People's Drama" (Bushido Drama in the Japanese Shogunate Period). Moreover, only seven puppet shows are allowed to be performed in Taiwan Province, and the best and most skilled artists in Taiwan Province Province are combined into a "Mobile Art Association" as a drama team for military performances and political propaganda. During this period, this combination also promoted artists to have opportunities with each other. Stage, lighting, records, realistic three-dimensional scenery, puppet modeling changes, bushido plots and chopping methods have great influence on the later development of puppet shows in Taiwan Province Province. At the beginning of the end of World War II, folk acting activities resumed. However, in February of 1947, the "228 Anti-Violence Incident" against China's rule occurred in Taiwan Province Province. The ruler of China, who just took charge of Taiwan Province Province, felt a strong fear of the gathering of people in Taiwan Province Province, especially by performing to gather people to make the ruler more sensitive. For this reason, the rulers of China banned outdoor stage performances for more than a year, on the grounds that private parties were not allowed. In addition to some artists being forced to give up acting, some artists have to switch to the theater to continue selling tickets for a living. In the commercial performance of the theater, the number of seats sold determines the survival of the troupe. However, traditional puppet shows have a small stage and smaller puppets. After entering the theater, in order to attract more audiences, we began to enlarge the stage, change the stage form, increase the three-dimensional scenery and change the puppet shape, so that the audience standing in the distance can see more clearly. These changes in the form of drama came from the reform experience of the Japanese colonial government during the "Imperial Movement".

The biggest change is that after entering the commercial theater, the competition is more intense. If you want to hold the audience tightly, you must first start with the plot. Every day, the continuous plots are interlocking, and every day there are new thrills, tensions and suspense ... At this stage, the traditional plots and chapters of novels are not enough, and people start to write their own stories, which is nothing more than "gratitude and resentment, family hatred." With the confrontation between Southeast School, Northwest School, Shaolin School and wu-tang clan as the main axis, the fighting in Wulin and the feud between the two sides are endless. Every day at the end of the play, just "what is the result?" The performance ended on the pretext of "watching tomorrow". The audience was attracted by the mood of waiting for the "announcement tomorrow" and couldn't stop. They still go to the theatre every day. This is the "Golden Puppet Show" developed in modern Taiwan Province Province. On the one hand, it is also the strict control of Chiang Kai-shek's regime, which has just defeated Taiwan Province Province, except for stories of rebellion, corrupt officials, murder and superstition (such as Water Margin). Any drama that ends in failure and tragedy often violates political taboos. Although there are many themes in China's historical novels, the audience is no longer fresh. Performing China's historical dramas is the most common violation of political taboos (there were too many ideological policemen at that time, and such people had a little education, but they were not high, which was unimaginable in thinking logic and terrible). Therefore, performing costume dramas without historical background and martial arts dramas without realistic thoughts, because the drama stories are written by artists and appreciated by the audience, artists can have endless drama stories. As long as they constantly emphasize "loyalty and filial piety" or "the evil is invincible", most of them will not get the ideological police into trouble (the plot of the performance has to be approved by the government). At that time, artists were forced to perform a drama symbolizing Jiang's counterattack on the mainland and the failure of the producers. Until the 1980s, some people shouted in puppet shows: Because this kind of puppet shows the characters' martial arts with colorful strips, they will "spit sword light" on their foreheads or mouths to kill people, and the kung fu of important people has been practiced to the point where they can't be killed. In the 1960s, after the television broadcast in Taiwan, the craze gradually subsided. 1In March, 970, Huang Junxiong's TV puppet show "Yunzhou Scholar" was staged, which absorbed the themes of various schools, and the inner puppet show really went down the waves, and finally disappeared in the theater and walked out of the wild stage. Because of the need of inner puppet show, a large number of actors have been created, creating another miracle in Taiwan Province Province-nearly 7800 people. So far, regardless of the uneven level of performing arts, the number of puppet shows alone has been an amazing miracle-nearly 1000.

Due to the super-fierce development of Jinguang puppet show, it has gradually formed a powerful new force since the stone age. The revolutionary performance form of Jinguang puppet show is very different from that of traditional puppet show. In order to distinguish the two, the term of classical or traditional puppet show gradually appeared, which refers to the palm play before the improvement, regardless of the traditional or classical title. In fact, there is no so-called standard prototype and a set of rules, so there is a set of traditional drama. Li Tianlu's performance is not necessarily the same as Xu Wang's, because each artist's learning skills are different. Coupled with the deterioration of his memory over the years and the improvisation during the performance, there are often many performances in the same play. Even the same master (mainly the puppet master) will be different from yesterday, so it is difficult to draw a conclusion about the classical puppet show, which can only be considered as a general term. No matter it is traditional or classical, the biggest difference from Guangjin Opera is that it has a set of classical performance aesthetics, its own mode and an improvisational ability in performance. This is incomparable to the golden light department which pays attention to shooting and production.

Like most operas in Taiwan Province Province, the development of puppet shows in Taiwan Province Province was introduced from the mainland. As the immigrant tribes began to take root in Taiwan Province, some cultural customs along the coast of the mainland also spread in. These cultural customs interacted with other operas, and also produced new localization elements with the tribes and language families entering various places. Every opera, whether it is a small opera, a grand opera or an occasional opera, is constantly adding and producing new forms of performance.

The same is true of the development of puppet shows. /kloc-After the middle of the 9th century, puppet shows, which were first popular in southern Fujian, spread all over Taiwan Province with the immigrants from Quanzhou, Zhangzhou and Chaozhou. At the beginning, there were two masters from Quanzhou (Tongquan, a fellow villager in Jin Quan, and Chenpo, nicknamed "Catwoman"), so they were called "Two Treasures in the South". At this time, the style of Quanzhou puppet show, with Nanguan as the background music, became the earliest puppet show style in Taiwan Province Province, commonly known as Nanguan puppet show, and became the first style in the history of puppet show in Taiwan Province Province. Nanguan puppet show pays attention to the twists and turns of plot, elegant dialogue and beautiful singing, which has the characteristics of traditional intellectuals' red tape and is also called "literati drama". However, in the late Guangxu period of Qing Dynasty and the early days of Japanese occupation, it was gradually replaced by the noisy, lively and easy-to-understand "Beiguan puppet show". As the name implies, the background music was changed to Beiguan, and the development of puppet show became the most popular drama entertainment in Taiwan Province Province because of its popular characteristics, because of its strong appeal and breakthrough in "Nanguan puppet show" and "Beiguan puppet show", until the "imperial people" in the Japanese occupation era. After the recovery, Huang Haidai's improved knight-errant drama rose, replacing the entertainment position of puppet show.

As far as the structure of traditional puppet shows is concerned, it is characterized by stage and backcourt music. This stage is about five or six feet high, four feet wide and two feet deep. It is like a Buddhist shrine, with doorposts, lintels, rooms, bed curtains, tables and chairs, etc. Later, the theater shed was improved into a hexagonal building (or colorful building), with a beautiful building, a cover, a base, columns and a screen. In the past, a troupe had to have a "play cage" to perform in groups. The so-called "play cage" is the general name of all the equipment and instruments of the troupe, including the play shed, puppets, costumes, props, drums and chords. Because the props used by puppets are few and small, they can often be carried around in one or two cages and performed everywhere, so the operators of folk puppet shows the importance of "whole class" to see the equipment.