The Pauline Benton Collection

The Pauline Benton Collection is the heart of Chinese Theatre Works’ collections of shadow figures. It represents a significant historical and ethnographic treasure trove as well as an artistic resource. Pauline Benton began collecting these figures in China during her stays in Peking during the 20’s and 30’s. Some of the shadow figures in the collection were already antiques she acquired them. A few date back as far as the 18th and early 19th centuries; and many regional styles of figure design are represented. Most of the figures in the collection Benton commissioned from local shadow craftsmen in the “Luanchow” style, popular at that time around the vicinity of Peking. She also commissioned several complete sets of figures and large scenic units somewhat larger than the traditional Luanchow-style figure, (14-19” tall, instead of the usual 9-12”).

All of the puppet figures in the collection are fabricated out of translucent donkey hide, exquisitely perforated and filigreed with small sharp knives, then brilliantly colored with transparent dyes and coated with tung oil or lacquer as a sealant or preservative for the leather. The human and animal figures are fully articulated to allow for lifelike movement, with up to eleven separate pieces jointed together with a heavy waxed silk thread, which are manipulated from points at the neck and hands by three short wire control rods with reed or thin stick handles. The especially delicate heads of the human figures are detachable from the bodies for storage purposes. The scenic units are made of up to a dozen panels of somewhat thicker translucent animal hide (each approximately 8" x 10"), also delicately perforated and dyed. The panels are hinged together, so that the whole unit can fold up quite small for storage, or unfold to cover a large portion of the shadow screen’s playing area.

Also part of this collection are: several collapsible shadow screens; a collection of traditional Chinese musical instruments; miscellaneous performing equipment and paraphernalia; Benton’s detailed notes on Chinese Shadow performance she witnessed in the 30’s, performed by her mentor, Mr. Li; translations of play scripts for traditional shadow shows; photos; and an extensive library of rare books and documents on Chinese culture, theater and shadow performance.

Chinese Shadow Theater

The 2000 year old craft of Chinese shadow performance had reached its highest point of development as a popular art form in the late 19th century during the waning years of the Qing (Manchu) Dynasty, when almost every village and town in the vast countryside had as least one shadow company. Hundreds of companies large and small were active in the cities, passing their skills, their traditional repertoire and their collections of figures down for generations.

But by the time Benton arrived in Peking, in the mid-1920’s, the social/political turmoil that followed the collapse of the last Imperial Dynasty, and the civil war chaos of the Republican Period (in conjunction with the advent of Western entertainments, such as cinema) meant that many of the old shadow troupes were closing down. Some of the fine older figures and scenic pieces that Benton acquired were from the stocks of these defunct or struggling companies.

During her period of stay in China during the mid-1930’s, Benton studied with a master shadow performer, Mr. Li Tuo Sheng, and the canny, insider knowledge she gained informed her collecting. Not only is each type of figure represented by the finest available specimens, but the collection as a whole is extraordinarily comprehensive – containing complete sets of figures, props and scenery units from some of the most popular plays of the traditional shadow theater repertoire, including episodes from Journey to the West, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, The Legend of White Snake and other historical epics, folktales and legends. Figures and scenic pieces were acquired to represent Heaven and Hell, Imperial Palaces and pleasure gardens, underwater dragon palaces, mountains, Bamboo forests, as well as a Marketplace and street scenes populated by figures taken directly form contemporary Chinese urban life in the 1920’s.

Much of the world depicted by these shadow figures vanished soon after Benton left China, destroyed in the fires of World War II or during the massive upheavals of the Communist Revolution. The Cultural Revolution of the 60’s and 70’s spelled the death of traditional shadow theater in mainland China. Except for a few companies still operating out of Taiwan, the old art form is nearly extinct today. Thus, the Benton collection of shadow theater objects is a truly unique cultural treasure which captures, in translucent donkey hide, the shadow s cast by a lost time.

Performance and Preservation

When Ms. Benton returned to the United States, she founded a performance troupe to preserve the traditions of Chinese shadow theater that she saw slipping away even in her time. Formed in 1930, the Red Gate Players was the first company to present authentic Chinese shadow performances in English to American audiences. Many of the figures in the collection were used in Red Gate’s performances and lecture/presentations. After the company ceased touring, in the early 60’s, the figures were packed away in several large steamer trunks. When Ms Benton died in 1975, she had already donated much of her collection to the Minnesota Museum of Art. The remainder was passed on to her associate, Mercina Karam. Karam presented them to Jo Humphrey’s Gold Mountain Institute for Traditional Shadow Theater (GMI) in 1996, in keeping with Benton’s wish that the figures in the collection be used for performance, education and display.

When the Benton collection arrived at GMI, the figures had been stored in trucks for almost 40 years. During this time, the tung oil that each figure had been coated with in order to preserve the hide and to give the shadows added translucency, had extruded and turned viscous and sticky. The individual figures and scenic elements, packed tightly in the humid confines of the storage trunks, were stuck together and compressed into a solid mass. Jo Humphrey, GMI’s founder, took on the arduous task of salvaging the collection. She had originally learned the craft of conserving leather shadow figures while at the Museum of Natural History, working on its Lauffer Collection of Chinese figures.

Applying this knowledge to the problem at hand, Humphrey carefully pried the delicate figures apart, sorted and catalogued them and then began the process of refurbishing individual figures. Each shadow figure needed to be disassembled and carefully cleaned. Torn sections had to be repaired with tiny tabs of translucent hide before the figures could be reassembled. Finally each item was flattened (the hide curls easily as the result of fluctuations in humidity,) catalogued and then stored in paper envelopes. Humphrey worked to restore some of the finest figures and groupings, of figures in the collection, including a wedding procession that contains several dozen individual figures, palanquins and a horse-drawn carriage. All of the restored figures have been stitched onto muslin screen panels, to allow air circulation around the figures and framed beneath Plexiglas sheets for public exhibit.

Exhibition

Since 2001, when GMI merged with Chinese Theatre Workshop to form Chinese Theatre Works, further conservation efforts have produced several more mounted panels of restored figures. These, as well as the older panels, have appeared in numerous exhibitions of shadow figures. Many of the older panels were shown at a 1998 international shadow theatre festival in Larissa, Greece, and at Hong Kong’s Nau Chi Wan Civic Center in 2000. More recently, panels of figures were featured in the 2003 “Puppetry of Shadow and Light” exhibition at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center (along with the Red Gate Players’ stage), and the 2003-4 “Shadows and Strings” exhibit at Greenwich, Connecticut’s Bruce Museum.