Gods on strings

Now rarely encountered, puppet performances were once a common sight here in Singapore. Much like street opera performances, the appearance of puppet stages more often than not, coincided with festivals celebrated at Chinese Taoist temples. While such performances may have provided entertainment to the common folk in days before television invaded our homes, they were often put up for religious purposes, with puppets also playing a part in performing rituals and in performances conducted for the pleasure of visiting gods.

Carried over by the Chinese emigrant community, various forms of Chinese puppetry have been seen in Singapore. String (marionette), rod, or glove puppets are mostly used. String puppets, which can best replicate human-like movement and gestures, carry the highest status and are thought to be most sacred amongst the various types of puppets. Belief was that puppets of deities used in rituals were brought to life by the deities they represented and the skills that the puppeteer demonstrated was imparted by the god of string puppets, also the god of theatre — a deity that is most often represented by a marionette. For this reason, string puppeteers were initially Taoist priests, due to their ability to communicate with the gods.

Over time, puppet troupes have taken over the role played by priests, with the eventual secularisation of the practice as a theatre form. Music used in puppetry has also changed, with a move from the use of nanyin music in Hokkien puppetry towards the more folk-like gezai music form that is associated with opera.

These days, all but a handful of puppet troupes keep the tradition alive. One, a Hokkien string puppet troupe known as Geyi, was founded in 2001 by Doreen Tan. Madam Tan, rather interestingly, was English educated and had no background in the traditional Hokkien theatre. Geyi is currently staging performances at the beautifully restored Temple on Phoenix Hill, Hong San See, during the elaborate commemoration of the feast day of its main deity, Guang Ze Zun Wang (广泽尊王) or Kong Teik Chun Ong (in Hokkien). The deity is widely worshipped in Lam Ann, the origins of the temple’s founders. The festival celebrations run until 16 March 2023.

The troupe during the banxian (impersonating the immortals) ritual.

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More photographs taken during the Guang Ze Zun Wang festival at Hong San See:

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Singapore’s last traditional puppet stage maker?

Puppet shows once made appearances around Taoist temples scattered all across Singapore. Like the Chinese street opera and the more modern getai performances, they were usually put up for the pleasure of visiting Taoist deities on their earthly sojourns, or for hungry ghosts who as belief would have it, roam the earth when the gates of the underworld are opened during the Chinese seventh month. Puppet shows also found great appeal with the common, especially amongst the young ones. These days however, the distractions of the modern world hold sway and the appeal of tradition seems to have waned. Just a handful of troupes still perform around today leaving supporting craftsmen such as Mr Leong Fong Wah, whose lifetime’s work has been in painting and putting together puppet stages, a dying breed.

A typical Chinese puppet stage is really an assembly of pieces of plywood on which colourful decorations and backdrops are painted on one side and reinforced on the other. All it takes is a few weeks to add the decorative work before a stage can be put together. This quick turnaround time, the lack of a customer base, and the fact that a stage can be used and reused for as long as ten years, does mean that there is little in terms work in the area for the business that Mr Leong runs, Leong Shin Wah Art Studio. Having been started in the 1940s by Mr Leong’s father, whose name the business is identified with, the workshop must have been involved in putting together a countless number of stages. With nothing in way of puppet show stage orders in sight beyond an order that Mr Leong is currently in the process of fulfilling, this last stage that he is building may be one of the last, if not the last, traditional puppet show stages being made not just at Mr Leong’s workshop, but also in Singapore.

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A typical traditional puppet show stage set up:

A puppet stage set up at Telok Ayer Street.

The stage set up also hides puppeteers and musicians behind a backdrop and other decorated plywood panels.

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Chinese Puppetry in Singapore:

A lifelong passion pulling strings (Henghwa string puppet troupe)

The last performance of the Sin Sai Poh Hong puppet troupe (Teochew Rod Puppet Troupe)

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