Page 2 | Wayang puppets

Making the puppets

Contents

Wayang puppets - a spotter's guide (1)

Making the puppets (2)

The main character types (3)

Stylisation (4)

The elements of puppet design (5)

Colours (6)

A final word (7)

Seleh Notes Volume 4 Number 4

© Tim Byard-Jones

 

Petruk – clowns come in all shapes and sizes.

The puppets are carved, using a hammer and chisels, from one or more pieces of buffalo hide, the exact number depends on how many movable parts the arms have.

Old puppets are often copied, but I have never seen a stencil as such used in any puppet-maker’s workshop.

After carving (which can take anything from a few hours to a few weeks depending on the size and complexity of the puppet) the puppet is painted.

As we shall see, for classical wayang both the carving and the painting are constrained by the limitations of tradition, although new forms of wayang can give more scope for originality and creativity.

Obvious question - ‘Why bother to paint the puppets at all, if all you can see are the shadows?’

 

This one has (quite unnecessarily) exercised the minds of a great number of non-Javanese over the years.

One authority suggests that men sit on the dhalang’s side of the screen, seeing the colours, while women are confined to the shadow side. Another suggests that invited guests are placed on the dhalang’s side, while uninvited guests sit on the shadow side.

While it is true that the audience at a modern wayang performance is spread out on both sides of the screen, I have never been able to work out a hard and fast rule for who sits where.

People go: a) where there’s room for them; b) where they can get a good view; c) where they damn well like!

In any case, many of the colours do show through the screen given good enough buffalo hide to start with and a strong enough light.

Semar

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