Recently, an original puppet play rich in realistic humanistic care, "The Doll Repair Shop," was performed at the Shanghai Theatre Academy's Duanjun Theatre. Students of the Puppet Performance class of 2020 from the Shanghai Theatre Academy's College of Chinese Opera delivered an impressive and vivid performance for their graduation project.
The play revolves around a doll repair shop owned by a Shanghainese uncle and tells a story of a father and son moving from estrangement to mutual understanding, as well as the affection between a grandmother with Alzheimer's disease and her granddaughter, with puppets and small animals thoughtfully accompanying them.
It integrates Chinese traditional puppetry techniques with modern human and puppet performance, encompassing major international and domestic styles such as rod-top, string, glove, stick, shadow and mechanized puppetry, and features the combination of a rich variety of artistic expressions like lighting, music, dance and multimedia, capturing slices of real life that provides a comforting touch to the daily routine and resonates deeply with the viewers.
Creating a puppet show with a realistic theme has been a bold attempt and innovation for this graduation play. Upholding authenticity and fostering innovation is the pathway for the future development of Shanghai-style puppetry. The College of Chinese Opera at the Shanghai Theatre Academy will also continue to explore a path for cultivating artistic talent that highlights the essence of Shanghai-style culture.
Puppet play, with a history spanning over 2000 years, is one of China's first intangible cultural heritage projects. Well-known stories such as "The Monkey King's Three Battles with the White Bone Spirit" and "Nezha's Havoc in the Sea" are among its popular plays. However, the cultivation of talent in Chinese puppet play has at times faced a shortage of skilled practitioners.
As the first university in China to start an undergraduate program in puppetry, the Shanghai Theatre Academy's Puppet Performance program was established in 2004. Celebrating its 20th year, it has cultivated batches of talented puppeteers for professional ensembles, laying a solid foundation for the inheritance and development of puppet art.
"Each year, a graduation play is performed, but unlike before, this year's play is an original work that incorporates the skills of Shanghai-style puppetry”, said Yin Wuwei, the head of the Puppetry Department at the Shanghai Theatre Academy and producer of "The Doll Repair Shop", who commented that "the play excellently combines traditional puppetry with the modern urban vibe of Shanghai culture, with which we also hope to continue exploring a path for the cultivation of artistic talent that highlights Shanghai-style culture.”
It is reported that the play has received support from the Shanghai Key Artistic and Literary Creation Theme Selection and Incubation Initiative, as well as the Chinese Puppet and Shadow Art Talent-in-Demand Development Program. With the support from the Shanghai Theatre Academy's Shanghai-style Puppetry and Shadow Art Innovation Team and the Shanghai Key Laboratory for Artistic Creation in Virtual Environments, it will continue to be developed as a signature piece for future puppetry students.
