Chinese Theatre

 In the Song Dynasty, there were many popular plays involving acrobatics and music. These developed in the Yuan Dynasty into a more sophisticated form known as zaju, with a four or five act structure. Yuan drama spread across China and diversified into numerous regional forms, the best known of which is Beijing Opera, which is still popular today. It generally involves very elaborated wardrobe and the acting is quite exaggerated and evident.

 Several forms of shadow and puppet theatre have flourished in China during the centuries. The history of shadow theatre in China may indeed be very long. A legend from the 1st century BC tells about an emperor who has lost his beloved and how a shaman brings her back to the emperor in the form of a shadow. On the other hand, it may be possible that shadow theatre in China was born during the Tang Dynasty (618–907), when the Buddhist monks and missionaries visualized their didactic storytelling with shadow puppets. Textual evidence of the shadow theatre is available from the Song Dynasty (960–1279). During that time, it is known that the shadow puppeteers formed their own guild.

 The execution of the puppet’s faces (which are usually shown in profile) is normally most delicate. They follow the conventions of opera make-up. Thus the faces of beautiful ladies and handsome scholars are usually cut so that only a narrow outline of the face is left from the leather to reflect the shape of their faces on the screen. The faces of the painted-face characters and the clowns are done so that their reflections carefully imitate the colourful facial make-up of the opera actors. The heads of the puppets are usually movable so that the costuming of the characters can be changed according to the needs of the play.

 The puppets also include many fantasy figures and animals. Just as on the opera stage, so also in the shadow theatre there are props, also cut of leather, such as chairs, tables, bushes, pens, mirrors, pipes etc. Special effects were created by pieces of coloured glass or mirrors. With a piece of red glass the spurting blood of a brave warrior can be projected while the cool moon with its rays can be projected onto the screen through a metal cylinder.