Getting hands on with a puppet master

The annual puppet festival shows how much life can be brought to shadow, as long as you have PVC and the right light

THE CHINESE art of shadow play has a history that stretches back to the years of the Han dynasty in about 206 BC. Wong Fai explains the origins of the deceptively simple art form to me with a smile on his face, as if the story he is telling is as fantastic as the characters he creates at the Hong Kong Puppet and Shadow Art Centre, where he is artistic director. Fai is in Dublin to perform and lead workshops at the annual International Puppet Festival, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year.

“The emperor Wu Han’s mistress died,” Fai explains through a translator, “and he loved her so much, he couldn’t concentrate on leading the kingdom. He told his servants he would do anything if he could get her soul back – that he would not mind if he never got to touch his mistress again as long as he could see her.”

Hoping to please his master, one of the servants carved a figure from leather and illuminated the figure’s shadow with an oil lamp behind a mulberry screen. The effect was so startling that “the emperor was convinced that she was still alive. He could concentrate on his work again, and of course the servant got paid.”

This original puppet was said to have been made with 11 different jointed pieces, and this remains the standard in Chinese shadow puppetry today, as Fai explains, while teaching me to make a shadow puppet of my own with an array of intimidating industrial tools and prosaic stationery supplies. Commercial shadow puppets these days are no longer made from leather, although professional puppeteers still favour it for its flexibility and its hard-wearing nature.

Instead, Wong Fai shows me how to cut through three surprisingly sturdy layers of PVC, from which the character we are creating will be formed. PVC, unlike paper, gives firm edges in shadow. A domestic sewing pin is bent with a pliers to form the ball-and-socket joints that connect the pieces together, and Fai insists on the importance of ensuring that the joints are all made facing the same way so that the puppet’s different pieces do not catch, inhibiting movement.

A paper clip is then uncurled to create five separate hinges, to which bamboo-wrapped wires are attached to allow the puppeteer to manipulate the figure. Because there are so many joints to be manoeuvred, each tiny puppet (the one we make is about 10in tall) requires at least two people to bring it to life. Traditionally the sticks could be seen by the audience, but as the art evolved puppeteers began to devise ways to disguise the manipulation.

It is remarkable how much life can be brought into the two-dimensional cut-out just by movement. Even without projection, a slight downward tilt of the puppet’s chin brings sadness to her expression; a sideways slant signifies coyness; the smooth movement of her arm becomes a seductive, beckoning gesture. The Chinese tradition has always exploited the simplicity of this effect, and even today, despite technological advances, the emphasis is on character rather than landscape or backdrop, with most of the atmosphere for shadow plays being created by simple lighting effects.

Shadow puppetry is still a popular art form in modern China. Stencils and kits for DIY puppet shows are readily available, but it is not all child’s play. As Wong Fai explains, it is a crucial part of community life in rural China in particular, “where they don’t have much to do for entertainment” and where shadow puppetry forms an important part of communal relationships, lasting up to four hours. “But after 1949,” he continues, “shadow puppetry became more professional in certain parts of China.”

The bifurcation of the form into two schools reflected regional divisions and mirrored other cultural differences. “In the affluent north,” Fai elaborates, “the art is more elegant, there is not so much movement and the story is told by song.” In the rural south “it is rougher, bigger, and the puppets move much more and faster” to hide the crudity of their construction.

Traditionally, Chinese shadow art revolved around characters from ancient Chinese history and myths, such as Zhong Kui, vanquisher of ghosts and drunken scholar, who appears in Fai's show Childhood Puppets, which opened the festival on Friday. This is in much the same spirit of the other, diverse puppet shows drawn together in this year's eclectic programme: from Russia and Germany to Bulgaria and Ireland, familiar and exotic mythologies and fairy tales are brought to life in enticing miniature scale.

puppetfest.ie

Highlights

The International Puppet Festival Ireland runs until Sunday. Full programme at puppetfest.ie. This year it has spread out from its home at the Lambert Theatre in Monkstown to encompass other city centre and suburban venues.

TCHEMODAN DUET The Russian duo play with illusion in a mischievous show in which a partially human puppet puts conventional notions of puppetry to the test. Tomorrow, 7.30pm, Samuel Beckett Theatre. Saturday, 7.30pm, Mermaid Arts Centre, Bray.

CLANN LIR Irish-language company Branar Téatar do Pháistí brings life to the old legend. The company’s second show, Mise Scéal Cailín, uses live animation in a tale of a young girl who couldn’t sleep. Clann Lir, Saturday, 11am, Lambert Puppet Theatre. Mise Sceal Cailín: Sunday, 11, Lambert Puppet Theatre.

THE BOATHOUSE German company Theater im Wind provides the centrepiece of the adult programme with a show about a young mother who takes in two foundlings in a war-torn town. Thursday and Friday, 7.30pm, Samuel Beckett Theatre

LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD The Lamberts’ version of the fairy tale, for all the family. Saturday and Sunday, 3.30pm, Lambert Puppet Theatre