At the turn of the last century, the great German collector and anthropologist, Bernard Laufer was on a mission to collect Chinese shadow figures for the American Museum of Natural History. Searching the city of Peking (now spelled Beijing) he uncovered only one old man who still made the traditional shadow figures, but who refused to make him a full set of figures, since a year and a half of labor was involved. Laufer managed to track down a shadow theatre troupe that was willing to sell their entire stock of over 500 figures, plus stage, musical instruments and texts for the sum of $600.

“So the ying-hsi (shadow theatre) will soon be a matter of the past in Northern China, and I saved them in the last hour.”

[private correspondence from Beijing, 1902, reprinted in China’s Puppets, Nancy Stallberg, China Books 1984, pg. 90]

Some thirty years later, Benjamin Marsh, an expert in Chinese culture and art, came to Beijing on a similar collecting trip for the Detroit Institute of Arts. Marsh was also able to purchase a complete set of figures and stage equipment from an ailing itinerant troupe for a relatively small sum. He brought these back to Detroit, where Paul McPharlin used them to present the first English language performances of Chinese shadow theatre in America. But concerning the future of the art form in its native land, Marsh wrote:

“In 1927 several shadow companies might be called upon for entertainment in [Beijing.] In 1931, there was but one, and that was a troupe four men who were not below middle age. The young men were thinking of other things.

[Benjamin Marsh, Chinese Shadow Figures and Their Making, Puppetry Imprints 1938, pg. 14]

About the same time that Marsh was passing through, another traveling American scholar, Genevieve Wimsatt, was in Beijing conducting an interview with an old shadow master, To-chen Li. Li, who as a youth studied at a mission school, was one of the very few Chinese shadow puppeteers who could speak English. He was a primary source of knowledge into the field for many western visitors-- including Pauline Benton, the founder of the Red Gate Players, who took photos and detailed notes of his performances. He may also have been one of Marsh’s informants. In Wimsatt’s interview, he relates ruefully:

“Only four companies now operate in [Beijing,] all in the hands of white-headed old fellows like myself. . .I have no pupils to continue the old traditions, to make my shadows dance when I am gone. I do not know who then will love my little players and cherish them. My stock will be scattered in curio shops and picture stalls, sold for a few coppers as toys for children, or to foreigners who do not know Kuan Yin from the Dragon Princess.”

[Genevieve Wimsatt, Chinese Shadow Shows, Harvard University Press 1936, pg. 33]

Some 35 years later, at the height of Cultural Revolution’s frenzy, another Western expert foresaw the imminent demise of the traditional shadow theatre. Dr. Brunhild Korner writing an introduction to an exhibition catalog of Pauline Benton’s collection of Asian shadow figures:

“In the China of today, it is to be feared that the cultivation of this intriguing art may more and more disappear. The original parchments of the figures are replaced by crudely colored synthetics/ as the contents of the historical plays oppose new ideologies, they are replaced by revolutionary plays. The performers can no longer bestow on the figures their former elegant mobility. . .”

[Catalog for “Shadow Figures of Asia from the Collection of Pauline Benton.”, Minnesota Museum of Art 1970, pg. 5]

How is it that these Western scholars all came to the same conclusion, that the tradition of Chinese shadow theatre, many thousands of years old, was about to go extinct in their time? Perhaps their status as outsiders made it easier for them to dismiss the strength of the traditional cultural forms. But obviously, the shadow theatre didn’t die out as predicted. It continues to flourish even now. But how? By talking directly to contemporary shadow puppeteers we will try to spell out some of the tactics they used to ride out the violent political and cultural fluxes that characterized 20th Century China. It makes for an interesting study in strategies for artistic survival. In writing this article, we talked to several directors of shadow troupes from both mainland and Taiwan: Hai Lu, a sixth generation shadow performer and the retired director of the Beijing Shadow Show Troupe; Jianguang Da, co-director of the Tangshan Shadow Play Theatre of Hebei Province; Liming Liang of the Liao Nan Shadow Theatre of Liaoning Province; Yufeng Shi of the Kaohsiung Cultural Center and Shadow Theatre Museum, in Taiwan; and Fukuo Chang (also a sixth generation puppeteer), director of the Tung-hua Theatre in Taiwan.

The Lu family saga best illustrates the challenges facing traditional puppeteers trying to navigate the choppy waters of wars and revolution. Their family tree stretches back 12 generations, but the story begins when the sixth generation patriarch, Guangcai Lu, joined a shadow theatre company during the waning years of China’s last dynasty. This was a period when the shadow theatre had reached a high point in refinement and popularity. Public festivals, weddings, birthdays and private rituals would almost always include a performance. The repertoire, a repository of religious belief, social custom and historical narrative similar to those of other Chinese performing arts, included: the epic adventures of the demon-quelling Monkey King; the tempestuous affairs of the magical animal spirit, Whitesnake; or the deeds of the great heroes from the Three Kingdom Period. In every city, town and village, itinerant troupes would play in private homes for audiences of women (who were not allowed to attend public theatres,) or contract their services to teahouses. The ruling Manchu clans and the imperial families of the Qing Dynasty were themselves great patrons of the artform and their household staff included resident shadow companies on call. Numerous regional styles developed. The form around Beijing was called the Luanchou style, after a nearby town, and it was further sub-divided in into highly refined Eastern and somewhat coarser Western styles.

But as the Qing’s authority began to wither away they came under attack from the gunships of the Western power in the east, and from roiling civil unrest within. The fortunes of traditional shadow troupes changed dramatically during this period. A rebellious religious sect called the “White Lotus” had persuaded people that they had magical powers to make armies of soldiers and horses out of cut paper figures. Ever cautious, government officials feared that the rebels might be able to achieve similar results using parchment shadow figures, the Qing banned the obvious threat to National Security and started arresting puppeteers. Locking up the puppeteers had the added effect of dispersing the crowds that would gather night after night to watch their popular performances, a natural breeding ground for all sorts of treasonous plots. To escape this persecution, Guangcai had to flee into the mountains. Sometime later, when danger was past, his son, Dercheng started a shadow theatre company of his own, that in time was taken over by the grandson, Fuyuen.

By now it was the turn of the 20th Century, and the Ching Dynasty was in its final death throes. The disastrous Boxer Rebellion had been brutally suppressed by a coalition of Western armies, warlords ruled, and famine, epidemics and civil breakdown was rife. In this situation, traditional shadow companies, who had been dependant on popular patronage, lost their livelyhood, since uprooted villagers and poverty stricken townspeople had no cash to spare for entertainment. By the time Laufer came along, many of the troupes were so destitute they’d sell their stocks of figures to foreign collectors for whatever sum they could get for them.

In 1911, the last Emperor abdicated, bringing 4000 years of dynastic rule to an inglorious end. After some more years of chaos and turmoil, a republic was declared and a brief period of relative stability followed. During this transitional period, China sought to assimilate outside political and social and artistic influences. New technologies such as film (known as “electric shadows” in Chinese) began to be seen in the big cities, and competing directly with the traditional shadow troupes. Some of the surviving shadow companies had to adapt to these changing circumstances. They replaced the old, sooty oil lamps with electric light bulbs, which meant that the color of their parchment figures could be seen much more vividly. They began using modern dyes to stain the hide and made other technical improvements to their craft. They also introduced new repertoire and designed new figures that represented the realities of the modern urban streets: rickshaws, bicyclists, motor cars, foreign types and regional caricatures, vendors hawking every conceivable item or service.

During this time, the Lu Family Shadow troupe managed to prosper. Fuyuen passed the company onto his son, Yuefong, who renamed it the Der Shuen Shadow Theatre. He had five sons, all of whom were active in the company (the three daughters, however, were forbidden by tradition.) They followed an old saying, “E zhuan, san huei, ba rung” – a puppeteer needs one strong mastery, three strong skills plus be able to handle 8 different backstage jobs. So they each took charge of specific aspect of production and/or character role. Yuefong managed the company, played percussion and did female voices; Eldest son, Jinquei, played sanxien (3 stringed instrument) and performed the clown voices; Second son, Jintong, was chief manipulator and performed martial arts (especially the Monkey King) voice rolls; Jinda, third son, designed and carved the figures and also manipulated; Jinping, fourth son played sihu (4 stringed instrument) and performed painted face characters; and the youngest son, Jinan, wrote the plays. In the early 1930’s, Jinda the master puppet designer was commissioned to make a set of figures for Pauline Benton, which she brought back home to use with her company, the Red Gate Players. These figures are considerably larger than the typical Luanchou figure (15-18” tall as opposed to 8-12”). They survive today in collections at the University of Minnesota and with Chinese Theatre Works.

The period of time when Marsh, Benton, and Wimsatt were visiting China was soon after the death of Dr.Sun Yat Sen, the recognized father of the Chinese Republic. Civil war had broken out again, this time between the Left and Right wing parties. The rightist Koumingtang, under General Chiang Kai Chek, battled the Communists, who, inspired by the successes of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, sought to foment similar revolts in China’s newly industrialized coastal cities. Both sides battled each other, and the warlords, while Western interests played the many factions off one other, and the Japanese stepped into the power vacuum to occupy the northeastern province of Manchuria. This turned out to be a prelude for a full scale invasion, which marked the first round of the global carnage known as World War II. The Koumingtang and the Communists called a truce so that they could unite in battling the Japanese.

During the invasion and war, the Lu family continued to perform, but naturally under extremely difficult circumstances. The Japanese were actually very appreciative of the traditional repertoire and Yuefon was even invited to bring the troupe to Japan. However he refused to collaborate, so in response they kidnapped the two eldest sons, Jinquai and Jintong. While on their way to Japan, the two brothers managed to escape, but they injured themselves jumping from a moving train.

World War II had hardly sputtered to an end when the civil war between the Kuomingtang and the Communists was reignited. A Communist military victory in 1948 led to the exile of Chang Kai Chek’s Koumingtang to the island of Taiwan, where they formed an American-supported counter-government that is still the source of much regional friction to this day. The new Communist regime altered the entire social ecology of the country. Since belief in God was proscribed, shadow theatre performances at temples in honor of the deities’ birthdays became taboo. Instead, the Communists used shadow troupes to propagate their new social and political order, just as the Soviets used Petrushka and other folk theatre forms to spread messages to the illiterate peasants in the countryside. Using their traditional techniques shadow artists created figures that representing the new generation of revolutionary heroes and villains. Some of the old style family troupes were given status a big national professional companies, with large artistic and administrative staffs, training and support facilities. The repertoire also changed to suit the new social conditions. In addition to all the usual classical material, performances now included simple animal fables, creating shows specifically for children and young audiences. The Der Ruen Ho troupe of Hunan Province, pioneered this new direction by creating shows such as Crane and Turtle. Their success (and the lack of copyright law in China) insured that in short time every shadow company in China included this piece in their repertoire.

Yuefon and his sons supported the new regime’s cultural activities by creating propaganda shows touting specific government programs, such as The National Patriotic and Sanitation Movement, or tips on how to become a good work collective. They did shows about international events -- an anti-American shadow show, The Worries of Ike, dealt with the explosive situation in Korea. Later on they did shows about Cuba, during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Given any subject matter, the five brothers could create a new show overnight and perform for audiences the next day.

During the Korean War, Yuefong had the five sons to go to the front to do shows. They performed in the tunnels that were dug beneath the DMZ. When they came back. The Communist party rewarded their service by making their company a nationally sponsored troupe. It was renamed the “Xuen Wu Shadow Company” (Xuen Wu was name of their County.) But other shadow artists still knew them as the “Lujianban,” the Lu Family Troupe. As an officially sponsored company, they received government subsidies for all production expenses, administration and artist salaries.

But support from the central government, while giving the troupe a degree of stability, came with strings attached. This was most sharply illustrated during the calamitous period known as the Cultural Revolution. As Mao’s power began to slip in the mid 60’s he unleashed cadres of radical young Red guards to terrorize political opponents and uproot anything smacking of pre-communist or foreign influence. The results were uniformly disastrous. Almost all serious intellectual and artistic activity ceased for its 10 year duration. Chinese theater companies were restricted to presenting eight new plays that had been officially sanctioned by Mao Tse Tung’s wife. Every other play was banned as counterrevolutionary or purveying superstition and “old thinking.” The Lu family, too, suffered greatly during this period. They ceased performing altogether and the company scattered.

Mao’s death brought an end to this tumultuous period, and eventually the Central Party asserted its authority and disbanded the Red Guard cadres. The cultural groups that had laid dormant began to reestablish themselves. The Lu family also began to perform again. However the ten years of chaos had serious repercussions on their work. Connections between traditional patterns of culture had been severed and a whole generation of young people had grown up forcibly alienated from these the older cultural forms. So the Lu family had to struggle to rebuild their shattered audiences. The government once more stepped in, hoping to repair some of the damage of the previous decade’s iconoclasm. Like other shadow companies at the time, they began adapting to a large screen format, using a 15’ wide screen — a style of staging that had been pioneered in the 1950’s as a means of playing to larger urban audiences. The size of the figures doubled to almost 3’ tall, but later they realized that such huge figures were clumsy to manipulate, so they scaled them down to about 24”. The light source was also changed – instead of a single incandescent light bulb, the puppeteers used banks of up to 12 4’ fluorescent bulbs, which bathed the wide screen in a bright, even light. The figures had additional rods attached to the feet that gave them more realistic articulation. The design of the figures changed, too, now painted on clear plastic in garish, translucent colors, rather than carved and delicately perforated animal skin, in a style modeled after that of cartoon animation.

The Xuen Wu Shadow Troupe continued to operate during the 80’s and 90’s. But as the Central Government began to drastically cut back subsidizing and funding arts groups, they’ve had to seek new ways to finance their work and develop audiences. The company’s management was taken over by a large commercial entertainment group, that has been given a monopoly to run all the small theatres and cultural groups the local city government no longer wanted to support. While the management group covers about 60% of the shadow company’s expenses, the other 40% must come from box office receipts and touring revenues. Most of their performances are for children and foreigners, at the new China Puppet Art Complex or in their own theatre space inside the Beijing antique district. But as China cobbles together a new market economy, it has become increasingly difficult for them to make ends meet.

Our informant, Hai Lu, retired a few years ago from directing the Xuen Wu Troupe. He was invited to Liaoning Province in the northeast, where he works in the local cultural center. While his own son knows how to carve figures and has some basic performance skills, these are not up the artistic level of proceeding generations. So, with an eye to the future, Mr. Lu’s interest is in educating young people in shadow theatre technique and also exhibiting his large collection of shadow figures. In this way he is insuring that the accumulated experience of generations gets passed down to future generations.

Other contemporary shadow companies have followed similar trajectories as the Xuen Wu Shadow troupe. We talked to Jianguang Da who is a co-director of the Tangshan Shadow Play Theatre in Hebei Province. Tangshan has historically been a center for shadow theatre, and their company is based solidly on this 600 year old tradition. Mr. Da started learning from puppet master Yunghen Qi. Their relationship was not just master/student, but almost father/son. Like the Lu family company, the Tangshan troupe was also unable to perform during the Cultural Revolution. But they didn’t disperse, so when performances were once more allowed they were able to reconstruct themselves very quickly. Unlike the traditional family-run small companies of the past, the Tangshan troupe is quite large, consisting of almost 50 members. With the generous and stable government support, the troupe could support its members comfortably. But even when in recent years the government began cutting back subsidies, they were able to support themselves through their touring activities, still performing over 400 shows per year – about half of them in Taiwan and Japan. Last year they won the first National Golden Lion Competition Award for the best shadow performances.

One reason for the Tangshen troupe’s success is their flexibility in creating productions for all types of venues and audiences. Depending on the situation, they can do shows with between 5-16 performers. They have adapted the large screen/large figure format which allowed them to play for audiences of up to 5000 people in countryside villages. They tailor their material to suit the audiences’ tastes. When playing in villages, they use all the traditional songs and recitatives, but when playing the same material for urban or foreign audience, who were not familiar with the traditional style they would eliminate the singing and just use dialogue. They are also adding English language plays to attract international audiences.

Adapting the traditional repertoire for contemporary audiences, adding repertoire for children, exploiting modern technical innovations and management practices has given a new dynamic life to many of the established shadow companies. Another popular strategy used by companies struggling to find a base of support for their work, has been to focus on tourist productions. The Liao Nan Shadow Company based from Anshang City in Liaoning Province is a good example of this approach. The company director, Liming Liang learned the craft from Hai Lu. They have their own theatre as part of the Qianshan Community Cultural Center, but their troupe of 9-10 also performs in local villages and schools. In addition to traditional repertoire, they also do a lot of propaganda shows, dealing with subjects of drug abuse and agricultural practices. One such show, Monkey King Fights the Lady Drug Pusher received a provincial award. However. despite their solid reputation, the company has had trouble maintaining itself. They have trained 3 groups of shadow performers, mostly teenagers. But each time the training process is complete, the young performers leave because the salaries are too low. To keep the company on track, Mr. Liang has had to invest a lot of his own money into the company (over $100,000.) The company is now trying to establish themselves as a hook for the local tourist industry. Last year, they had planned to host a large international shadow theatre festival, which was to include 5-6 international companies, as many national companies and 10 local companies. Unfortunately, the SARS epidemic squelched their plans. This year, they plan a shadow exhibition with figures from 10 different provinces.

In Taiwan, a different cultural pattern developed which reflected a very different constellation of political and social forces. Relatively free of government interference, the older forms of shadow puppetry managed to maintain themselves with a degree of purity. Five traditional shadow troupes, originally from the Mainland provinces of Guandung or Fujian, settled in Kaohsiung County in the southern part of the island. Each of these companies is a family run operation with between 1-3 manipulators and 3-7 musicians and presenting 20-40 performances a year. The Tung-hua Shadow Theatre, directed by Fukuo Chang is typical of these Taiwanese troupes. The company has been in existence for over 200 years and has in its repertoire 500 traditional plays. They perform at temples for festivals and deities’ birthdays, for weddings, private functions, theatres and schools. Still, they had to make allowances for contemporary conditions. In the 50’s and 60’s they have increased the size of their figures from about 1’ to 2’ tall to accommodate larger audiences. Mr. Chang also developed a technique of using multiple incandescent bulbs to illuminate the larger screen surface. To help support these companies, the Taiwanese government established a shadow theatre museum in the Kaohshiung County Cultural Center. In addition the Taiwanese government often helps subsidize companies touring abroad as means of backdoor diplomacy, since they do not have formal diplomatic relationships with other countries.

Chinese shadow theatre has always been deeply rooted in the cultural fabric of the nation, a fact which has enabled it to survive all sorts of political and social upheavals. But a contributing factor to the shadow theatre’s survival has been the interest of outside scholars and artists. The quotes at the beginning of this article from Laufer, Marsh and Wimsatt reflect that profound interest, as does the whole of Pauline Benton’s career with the Red Gate Players. Benton’s work provided inspiration for others, such as Jo Humphrey, the founder of the Yueh Lung Shadow Theatre (later known as the Gold Mountain Institute for Traditional Shadow Theatre and now as Chinese Theatre Works) to make the preservation of the artform a lifelong occupation. Humphrey had been working at the American Museum of Natural History, cataloging and cleaning figures of the Laufer collection. During the Cultural Revolution, when shadow theatre once more seemed to teeter on the verge of extinction, she began creating performances, using copies of the Laufer figures that she cut herself. Later, when half of Pauline Benton’s extensive collection of shadow figures was given to GMI, she spent years exhaustively cleaning and refurbishing these figures.

Humphrey always felt that her work was that of a caretaker, and it had to be eventually returned to the Chinese people. Her work has influenced and been an inspiration to a younger generation of Chinese artists. In the mid 90’s, a young theatre director from Hong Kong, Simon Wong came to New York City to study Chinese shadow technique with GMI. He brought this knowledge back to Hong Kong and applied it to his own company, the Ming-Ri Theatre. Later, when Hong Kong was returned to mainland government control, Wong began to collaborate with Chinese puppeteers in neighboring Guanzho Province, where he has become a major conduit of information for the Chinese troupes who are trying to learn the modern management and administrative techniques necessary to survive in a marketplace economy without government support. The China Guandong Puppet Troupe under the direction of Yu Chao Li, has since taken a leading role in organizing UNIMA/China. Recently Wong and Li have been campaigning to get Chinese shadow theatre officially recognized by the United Nations as a World Cultural Treasure. Such a designation would greatly increase the artform’s status within Chinese government circles, and in the eyes of the rest of the world. Wong’s work completes the circle of influence that began with western admirers of the artform such as Benton and Humphrey, and ends feeding back to active Chinese shadow companies.

While scholars and purists may argue about the decline of shadow theatre in today’s contemporary cultural environment, their dire prognostications underestimate the ability of traditional artforms to morph into new directions. Enough scholars and artists within and without China have recognized the shadow theatre’s importance and committed themselves to transmitting the artform to the next generation. Their work has made it all the more likely that the spirits embodied in the shadow theatre will flourish far into the next century and beyond.