Puppet Characters

The puppet models of shadow play

The shadow play of each place has different puppet model, and here is the example for the puppet models of Luanzhou shadow play [29,30].

Puppet models

Luanzhou shadow play uses the facial makeup of the puppet, spoken part and singing style of the character to differentiate between the loyal, villainous, righteousness, and wickedness roles. For example, plain face pattern represents a man of honor and woman of virtue; the facial makeup with thick eyebrows, big eyes and excrescent meat represents crafty and evil person; red face to represent a person with ardent loyalty; rude, bad-tempered and righteousness person is represented with green face or black face; wicked and vicious person is represented with white face or white eyes circles. All puppets’ eyes are emphasized in exaggerated manner and are carved on the center of the face to show its character. Important roles are all carved as straight side face, which shows only one eye, one eyebrow, one ear and one nostril. Less important roles, such as clown, evil spirits, ghosts and monsters are shown in side face or front face (the puppet shows two eyes, two eyebrows, and two ears). According to the model characteristics, facial makeup can be divided into righteous ‘Sheng (young man)’, ‘Dan (female)’, ‘Ran (elderly male)’ , ‘Jing (painted face)’ and ‘Mo (servant)’ and villainous ‘Da’, and ‘Chou (clown)’; ‘Lao Dan (elderly female)’ has both righteous and villainous characters. The righteous Sheng, Dan, Ran are all carved into plain face with the face part hollowed out and only the outline remains, which is called ‘Yang Ke’. Jing and Mo adopt ‘Yin Ke’, i.e., only the lines are carved and it is not hollowed out; Jing role is represented with green or black face, while Mo role is represented with red face. The villainous Da and Chou roles adopt Yang Ke and are carved into white face or pocky face with thick eyebrows, big eyes, thick lips, and open mouth to display their evil, wickedness and frivolous characters.

Puppet in general is divided into head and body. The costume and accessories of the male puppet are robe and boots, while female puppet wears skirt, and embroidered shoes. The headgear and clothes for the emperor are decorated with dragon, the headgear and clothes for empress and emperor's concubine are decorated with phoenix. The headgear of prime minister or high official is decorated with official seal, and they wear embroidered robe and jade belt; the supreme commander wears commander headpiece for headgear and war boots, and carries signal flag and arrow-shaped token of authority on the back. Civilian wears headgear, while warrior wears sagittate shaped headgear. The headgear and headdress of puppet are usually carved in connection with the head of the puppet, but there is also shadow play that adopts the separation model of the headgear and head. The role of each kind of puppet is described as below:

1. The role of Sheng

Sheng represents young male, which is equivalent to the ‘Xiao Sheng’ of Beijing opera and also named as ‘Wen (civilian) Sheng’－e.g., student, Number-One scholar, civil officer and etc., and ‘Wu (warrior) Sheng’－such as supreme commander, warrior and etc. The facial characteristic of Sheng role is curved eyebrow, straight pointed nose, almond-shaped eye and an upward, closed mouth with red lips.

Wen Sheng

Wu Sheng

(picture copied from [30])

2. The role of Dan

Dan represents female. It is equivalent to the ‘Qing Yi’ of Beijing opera, and the role is also divided into ‘Wen Dan’ and ‘Wu Dan’. Wen Dan is a fair lady, who wears braids for unmarried maiden, and coiffure with a topknot for married female; Wu Dan is a heroine, such as female supreme commander or female warrior, both of them are differentiated with headgears. Dan role wear hairs on the forehead, which is different from the Sheng role. It also wears eardrop, earring and wear flower in the hair or phoenix coronet and etc.

Wen Dan

Wu Dan

(picture copied from [30])

3. The role of Ran

Ran represents middle-aged or elderly male, which is equivalent to the ‘Lao Sheng’ in Beijing opera. Middle-aged Ran role is carved to have three-stranded whiskers, while elderly Ran is carved to have neat and separated whiskers. Ran role is also divided into Wen and Wu. The emperor, prime minister, governmental official, and other elders are included in Wen Ran role, while supreme commander, vanguard and other warriors are included in Wu Ran role.

Wen Ran

(picture copied from [30])

4. The role of Jing

Jing represents rash male with straightforward character, and is equivalent to the ‘Hei Lian (black face)’ in Beijing opera, which has thick eyebrows, big eyes, black face or green face. According to the age, Jing can be divided into child, young man, middle-aged man and elder. Child and young man do not have whiskers, middle-aged man has three-stranded whiskers, and elder has long full whisker. Jing role is also separated into Wen and Wu roles. Bao Gong is a representation of Wen Jing role, while Zhang Fei is a character of Wu Jing role.

Jing

(picture copied from [30])

5. The role of Mo

Mo represents the hot-blooded, loyal and patriotic person, which is expressed with red face, thick eyebrows, and almond-shaped eyes. Mo role is divided into child, young man, middle-aged man and elder. Child and young man do not have whiskers, middle-aged man has three-stranded whiskers, and elder has neat separated black and white whiskers. Mo role has also characters of Wen and Wu. Wen role is the loyal and faithful official, Wu role symbols brave, loyal commander officer, such as Guan Gong.

(picture copied from [30])

6. The role of Da

It represents the ambitious scoundrel with ulterior motive (such as Cao Cao); its face is expressed with white face, sawtooth-shaped eyebrows, large circled eyes, and crooked nose. Da role is divided into young, middle-aged, and elderly man. Young man does not have whiskers, middle-aged man has three-stranded whiskers, and elderly man has long full whiskers. Da role is also divided into Wen and Wu roles. There are disloyal and cunning minister, local tyrant and evil gentry and etc in Wen role. There are barbarian supreme commander and warriors in the Wu role.

(picture copied from [30])

7. The role of Chou

Chou role represents the frivolous, pretentious or funny, comical person. It is generally carved into white face or pocky red face featured with thick eyebrows, revealing teeth, and its eyes are encircled with white paint. The chou role is divided into male and female, elderly and young, and Wen, and Wu. Female Chou (clown) is also called ‘Hua Dan’, such as maiden and woman matchmaker.

Chou (male)

Chou (female)

(picture copied from [30])

8. The role of Lao Dan

Lao Dan is an elderly woman. According to its character, it can be divided into righteous, wicked and comic role. The characteristic of Lao Dan is that it has wrinkles on the face.

Lao Dan

(picture copied from [30])

Models of celestial being, demon and evil spirit

Celestial being puppet mostly imitates the models of monk, Taoist priest, Taoist priestess and high-ranked official. This kind of puppets cover Buddha, the Jade Emperor, Wang Mu Empress and Eight fairies and etc.

The Jade Emperor

(picture copied from [30])

Most of the demons are the embodiment of animals, so the headgear of the demon puppet is carved into the original shape of the animal for identification; such as tortoise spirit, spider spirit, fish spirit, shrimp spirits and etc. But there are also some figures that are not restricted to this, such as the Dragon King, the God of Thunder, the God of Fire, ox-headed and horse-faced ghosts, monkey Sun Wu-Kong, the pig-human Zhu Ba-Jie, the monk Sha Wu-Jing and etc. Since these puppets have special characters and can be used to represent a single role only, they are also called ‘puppet of special role’.

Ghost and monster represent the ghosts of the dead, and are mostly carved into big mouth, sharp and protruding teeth, and ferocious in appearance. Ghost and monster also have puppets for special roles, such as the King of Hell, Judge of Hell, etc.


Fish Demon and King of the Hell	Fire and Thunder Gods	Ox-headed and Horse-face Demons


Monkey Sun Wu-Kong and monk Tang San-Zang	Pig-human Zhu Ba-Jie and monk Sha Wu-Jing
(picture copied from [30])

Models of domestic animal, four-footed animal and flying animal

Horse, cow, goat, donkey, dog, pig and etc are domestic animals. Lion, tiger, wolf, leopard and etc are the four-footed animals (beasts) and birds are flying animals. These kinds of animals are mostly carved according to their original shapes. They can be carved as a whole or their heads, tails, and bodies can also be carved separately, which are then stitched up together through sewing. During operation, the puppet animal is operated by two control rods, one rod controls its head movement, and the other rod controls its tail to increase its agility.


Qi Lin (Chinese unicorn)	Horse
(picture copied from [29])

Models of other objects

These cover objects such as vehicle, sedan chair, bed, table and chair, dressing table, screen, tree, potted plant, altar, decoration, weapon…etc, and buildings such as city gate, bell tower, gate of courtyard, pavilion, palace, pagoda, monumental archway, bridge, house and etc.



Potted plants		Single-wheeled cart
	Pavilion
(picture copied from [29])