Written by Chih-Ching Chester Tsai.
Image credit: Slipping through Fingers (2022), photographed by Sheng Chun Huang, provided by Tainaner Ensemble.
Bodehi, Budaixi, or literal translation cloth sack theatre (布袋戲), is a form of traditional puppetry theatre in Taiwan. It was brought to Taiwan by early immigrants from southeast provinces of China during the Qing Dynasty. It has since developed into a unique form of theatre infused with local style and would later grow into one of the unofficial symbols of Taiwanese culture.
A typical Bodehi performance in the old days often occurred on the make-shift stage in front of a temple, a gathering spot for the local community. The performances were the locals’ tokens of appreciation and reverence for the deities while also being the main source of entertainment for the locals back when mass media wasn’t widely available. However, due to urbanisation and more entertainment options being accessible in the 1970s onward, these performances started to decline. As a result, watching an outdoor Bodehi performance in a public space has become a common yet very distant memory of many Taiwanese residents. In the hope of preserving this unique cultural asset, a few Bodehi artists and troupes have tried to innovate this tradition and find ways to speak to the modern-day audience again for the past two decades. For them, one way to breathe new energy into Bodehi is to collaborate creatively and experimentally with other performing disciplines.
Taiwanese Bodehi in Brief since the ‘fifties
Innovation and adaptation are the very nature of Bodehi. Throughout its history in Taiwan, artists and troupes have been trying to adapt to the changing society, and the performance form has undergone several major innovations. Since Bodehi was one of the main sources of entertainment for the people, it always has to cater to their ever-changing tastes. In the 50s and 60s, to attract potential ticket holders, new stories were devised or adapted from wuxia (martial heroes, a genre of Chinese fiction 武俠小說), which often featured fantastical plots piled with twists and turns and would usually end with a cliffhanger so that the spectators would come back the next day. Elaborate props and complex stage crafts, such as moving backdrops, fluorescent-painted sets, fireworks, and electrifying lighting effects, were adopted. For outdoor performances, besides the growing emphasis on special effects, the size of puppets was enlarged, and the ornaments on the cloth were more sophisticated than ever to increase the puppets’ visibility. Musical instruments accompanying the performances, such as keyboards and drum sets, replaced traditional ones to create more exhilarating music and sound effects. It was the time when Kim-kng Bodehi (or Jinguang Budaixi, or “Golden Ray” glove puppetry 金光布袋戲) came into being. Its unique aesthetics and brilliant visual style vividly capture the essence of this era.
Later, Kim-kng Bodehi took another turn and followed the popularisation of TV as it made daily appearances on the small screen. It was so popular that, once Bodehi was on the air, the streets went empty as adults and children alike halted work and school to watch. The refined Kim-kng style on TV later gave birth to the world-renowned series Pili 霹靂布袋戲, which continues to fascinate the audience to date and has even become the synonym for Taiwanese Bodehi.
However, in the late 60s, live Bodehi performances faced challenges from newly emerging media, such as TV variety shows, Taiwanese-speaking movies, and urbanised lifestyles. In the 70s, the popularity and viewership of Bodehi further decreased as the government banned the screening of Taiwanese-speaking Bodehi on TV for obstructing the nation’s productivity. As a result, performances in front of temples became merely a religious formality, sometimes without a single spectator.
Another Approach to Innovation
In the past two decades, for survival or to preserve the heritage that was once an inseparable part of people’s lives, many Bodehi practitioners have been trying to keep the tradition running while reinventing Bodehi as an art form. They stepped out of the make-shift stages and their puppets into unconventional black-box theatres or proscenium stages and started to reimagine Bodehi in terms of performativity and spectatorship. One example is Jin Kwei Lo Puppetry Company (真快樂掌中劇團). Like many other existing Bodehi troupes, they still tour the island for religious functions, but also regularly partner with Puppet & Its Double Theater (無獨有偶工作室劇團), the very first contemporary puppet theatre in Taiwan, to experiment with diverse forms of puppetry. One of the most successful is The Soup of Reincarnation (2018;《孟婆湯》), which combines Bodehi with contemporary puppetry. The make-shift stage turns into a mobile platform, allowing fluidity of the glove puppets in a black-box theatre. Classic characters are reimagined, and despite the newly given perspective, their stories are still narrated and sung in traditional text accompanied by traditional Pak-kuan (or beiguan 北管) music. This daring, experimental work fashions a new theatrical aesthetic while preserving the traditional representation of Bodehi culture.
Nevertheless, this “stepping out” is definitely an uneasy crossover. First, the art of Bodehi relies not only on the puppeteer’s mastery of puppetry but also on their improvisation skills. In traditional performances, the main puppeteer is only given a list of characters and plot cues for the story while improvising the narration and the lines in accord with the audience’s reaction. How to situate Bodehi in a scripted performance without losing that live spectatorship is something to be drawn upon. Additionally, the theatrical illusion of Bodehi is grounded literally and metaphorically on the platform under the glove puppets without revealing the puppeteers. Breaking and reestablishing the illusion means creative re-examination of the performativity of Bodehi as well as the relationships between the puppeteers and the puppets. Two noteworthy productions in 2022 highlight spectatorship and performativity while playing with the tradition of Bodehi.
The Prawning Decameron by Our Theatre and Yeung Fai
The Prawning Decameron (2022;《釣蝦場的十日談》) is a work created by Our Theatre (阮劇團), one of the contemporary theatre companies that focus on folk culture and the experience of the common people. Inspired by Boccaccio’s Decameron, it is set in a local prawn-fishing establishment. It is transformed into a quarantined hotel during the COVID-19 pandemic, where people tell lust stories to pass the time. Glove puppets and theatre actors co-star in this show. It headlines Bodehi puppeteer Yeung Fai (楊輝) as the co-director and leading actor. Yeung has won international acclaim with his works like Hand Stories and LIFELINES, both featuring actors and puppets seen onstage. The theatrical styles in his previous works are further developed in The Prawning.
The stage comprises various mobile sets, including prawn-fishing pools, a bar counter, and even crane machines, which all serve as the “floor” for the Bodehi puppets. However, the most unforgettable set resembles a cabinet of curiosities. Each door opens briefly for a scene featuring the glove puppets. Then, this whole set is revolved around, and we now see the puppet show through a live camera feed projected onto the big screen. The puppeteers hidden in the back are revealed, the intimate relationship between the “master hand” and the puppet is exposed, and the performative elements of a Bodehi performance are demonstrated as if we are witnessing “the making” of the show.
Slipping through Fingers by Tainaner Ensemble and Jin Kwei Lo Puppetry Company
Slipping through Fingers (2022;《指忘》) is a story about the father and son of a Bodehi family troupe. A long-absent son, Tian (田), recounts his memories about his father, Chiuan (泉), an ageing puppeteer whose memories and puppeteering crafts were challenged by dementia, and memories about his father’s lifelong commitment to the pursuit of Bodehi. Parallel to Chiuan’s life is the story of a Bodehi puppet, Tua-thau (Big Head大頭仔), one of the seven stock clown characters often serving as an innkeeper, a servant to the wealthy aristocrat, a sidekick, and many other supporting roles. A mythical figure assigns Tua-thau to search for the Lotus of Creation, and if he fails, he will have to continue in his reincarnations to come.
Like The Prawning, Slipping through Fingers also pairs theatre actors with Bodehi artists. A mobile counter that looks like a make-shift stage is the “ground” for Tua-thau’s storyline. At the show’s beginning, we see Chiuan stand behind the counter, moving his “bare” hand in dexterous gestures as if he is manipulating a giant puppet shadow seen in the backdrop. Then, he takes out the head and body of the Tua-thau puppet, assembles and wears it in his hand. The symbolic meaning appearing here and throughout the play reveals the essence of Bodehi art – a puppet is brought to life by a puppeteer, and the puppeteer commits his life to the art of puppets. The survival of the puppeteer builds upon the puppets and vice versa.
The aforementioned troupes and artists are not the only ones engaged in interdisciplinary collaboration. There are increasingly more Bodehi troupes devoted to innovating the tradition of Bodehi, and they have been tearing down boundaries in the contemporary art scene. If you’re interested in a performance that preserves the beauty of the Taiwanese language, the lively energy of Taiwanese culture and the dexterity of traditional performing arts, be sure to check them out. In the coming April, there will be another interdisciplinary Bodehi work featured in the 2023 Taiwan Traditional Theatre Festival (臺灣戲曲藝術節) by Jin Kwei Lo Puppetry Company. Also, around year-end annually, National Center for Traditional Arts hosts a theatre festival that boasts the most innovative, experimental reimagination of traditional performing arts you wouldn’t want to miss.
Based in Taipei, Taiwan, Chih-Ching Chester Tsai is a director and playwright who served as the resident director of Tainaner Ensemble between 2019 and 2023. His writing delves into the heart of individual and family identities within Taiwanese culture and intercultural contexts. In his directing approach, he emphasises literary texts while integrating multimedia and cross-disciplinary materials. His works have been produced by Tainaner Ensemble, The Funny Old Tree Theatre Ensemble Macau and Performosa Theater—more info: https://www.chihchingtsai.com.
This article was published as part of a special issue on ‘Theatre in Taiwan 2022-2023‘.
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