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Chinesse Shadow Theatre

There are two types of shadow theatre: One made with your hands and another type made with silouettes. The type I prefer most is the second, so I´m going to talk about it because is one of my favourites activities in my free time.

Shadows with hands

Unlike other types of puppets, the shadow puppet itself is never seen in a performance, only the effect it creates. I´ll share what I´ve learned about the three parts of the shadow puppet effect: The puppet shape, the screen and the light.

The puppet shape

The first step is to draw your design on the postcard or, in my case in a black piece of plastic, which is, in my opinion, a better option because you can cut more details in it.

Next, I cut out the design with scissors, cutters and mini- drills. The different parts or the body of a puppet are joined together in the way that you can see in the photos.

Shadow joints

and shadow joints (1)

First of all, you must make the holes and then you have to pull a thread through the pieces of cardboard or plastic and put knots on both sides. I finish the knot with a drop of glue on both sides.

Instead of a knot you can also use fasteners. The result is not exactly the same. It depends on the type of movement that you expect from the puppets to choose the knot or the fastener.

Although I prefer only black and white shadows, you can get interesting effects by adding coloured plastic behind cut-out areas.

A scene from my group

A shadow from Turkey

The body of my puppets is controlled with wire. Simple puppets use just the main control wire, but more complicated puppets may need a second wire to operate a moving part.

Usually there is one wire attached to the upper body and another to the hand or elbow.

For most performances, two wires are about all a puppeteer can handle. Sometimes you must be able to let your puppets alone and standing up for a while, without your hands holding them, so that you can do other things, like changing the music, fading out the lights, etc.

I attach the wire to my puppets with staples. Previously, I bend the end of the wire 90 degrees with a pair of pliers, which gives a joint to the attachment point. See the diagram below

A character

You have to put the wire on the right side depending on which direction each figure must appear on the screen.

Many times you must do two identical puppets, one of them to move towards the left and the other one to move to the right. If the puppet is a “main character” you´ll probably have to do many copies, not only due to the different directions of their movement, but to their different size, depending on the distance you want to suggest to the audience.

Finally, you have to give a different voice to each character, which sometimes is a mess.

The screen

There are many different types of shadow screens: cotton, plastic, paper,…

Shadow screens must transmit as much light as possible, but at the same time, be opaque enough to hide the puppeteers.

Traditionally, the screen has been a piece of white cotton and this is the material I prefer most.

The light

Asian puppeteers use oil lamps. It´s romantic, atmospheric but nowadays we have better options. I´m talking about electricity.

Connecting lamps

I use a 150 watt halogen lamp put between my head and the screen, so the audience cannot see me. As simple as that!. See the diagram.

My backstage

Using a dimmer allows me to match the light to the space where I´m performing and it also makes possible fading in and out .

Scenery

Scenery can be made in the same way as the puppets. This is theory. In real life I wasn´t able to find a piece of plastic with the size I needed, so all my sceneries are made of DM, (a type of wood), cut with a electric saw and …a lot of patience.

Building a scenery

The ” theatre”

The theatre is only a box with a square hole in the middle.

I like working with wood so my theatre is a bit complicated but, essentially , it is a box with a hole in the middle.

Building a theatre,

…… my final theatre

By Manuel Santiago López