Hakka puppet show in western Fujian, formerly known as "puppet play", is a kind of folk drama performance that has been circulated in western Fujian for hundreds of years. The actors manipulate puppets to interpret traditional opera stories for the viewers, which was once loved by the local people.
There are two theories about the origin of the Minxi puppet show.
First, in the early years of the Ming Dynasty, Lai Fakui of Shanghang Baisha Zhangkeng, Wen Feng of Tangfeng, Li Fazuo, Li Fayou brothers and others learned puppetry in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, and returned to Shanghang to form the first puppet theater class;
Another theory is that Liang Yuanchun, the ancestor of Kaiji zu, surnamed Liang Yuanchun of Shanghang Baisha Shuizhuyang in Fujian Province, learned high-cavity puppetry from Yuqian County, Zhejiang (his brother Liang Yuanbi was in Qianzhi County at the time) during the Ming Yongle period, and since then, he has been engaged in puppetry for generations and has become the birthplace of high-cavity puppetry in western Fujian. Since then, puppet shows have gradually spread to counties in western Fujian and to eastern Guangdong and Chaozhou, as well as to Hunan and Taiwan. By the end of the Qing Dynasty and the early years of the Republic of China, puppet theater in western Fujian flourished greatly, and there were more than 100 puppet theater classes in Hangzhou Baisha alone.
The Hakka puppet show in western Fujian has a very deep mass foundation and is a must-have project for local people's daily wedding celebrations and folk festivals. Most of the people's historical knowledge, stories and legends, as well as the inheritance of traditional outlooks on life, values, ethics and morality, etc., come from the viewing of puppet shows.
Western Fujian Hakka puppet show Jinjing famous drama "Damingfu"
The puppet is a mixed wood carving head, and the bamboo cage is the body. After the head is carved, it is coated with silver powder and colored according to the face. The palms and soles of the feet are also carved from miscellaneous wood, and the arms and legs are a roll of soft cloth. After the founding of New China, wood carved arms and large and small legs appeared. Each puppet gradually grew from five control lines to more than ten. The puppet's height has grown from more than one foot to more than three feet. Operations consisted of a single person operating a puppet, to the extent that sometimes multiple people operated a puppet. The number of drama classes increased to more than six or seven. The repertoire has developed from a single stage play to an "original play", with more than 1,000 plays. The 24 puppets were not enough, so they were solved by changing clothes and hats and wearing a mask. Each drama class generally has more than 30 face shells. Sometimes due to the needs of the plot, the puppets with sticks and cloth bags are used, which greatly enriches the means of performance.
Hakka puppet shows are also known as the Ten Fingers Masterpiece, and depending on the plot, each puppet will have 16 to 36 connections. Together with costumes and props, a single puppet weighs 2 to 5 kilograms. During the performance, the actors have to stand on a 5-meter-long and 3-meter-wide platform through a 2-meter-high background curtain while singing, and manipulate the puppets to make walking, kneeling, leaping, and even calligraphy and painting, which is extremely difficult.
Hakka puppet shows experienced a difficult period of no applause and a large number of audiences in the 1980s and 1990s. Today, in Shanghang County, Fujian Province, the hometown of Hakka puppetry, this ancient art, which was once facing the situation of being lost, is being carefully inherited and innovated.
On June 10, 2021, the State Council officially announced that the Hakka puppet show in western Fujian was included in the fifth batch of representative inheritance items of national intangible cultural heritage. The Hakka puppet show in western Fujian, which has been circulating in western Fujian for more than 600 years, has since entered a new historical period.
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Editor-in-charge: Jia Tingyi