The Origin of "Face Changing" in Detail

Legend has it that "face-changing" is an ancient art in which human beings, faced with ferocious beasts, sketched their faces in different ways to scare the invading beasts in order to survive. Sichuan Opera puts "face-changing" on the stage, and makes it a unique art with its marvelous skills. There are three types of face-changing techniques: "face-wiping", "face-blowing" and "face-pulling". In addition, there is also a kind of "luck" face-changing. "Wiping the face" is to put make-up paint on a specific part of the face, and then wipe the face with the hand, you can change into another face. If you want to change all of your face, apply the paint to your forehead or eyebrows, and if you want to change only the lower half of your face, apply the paint to your face or nose. If only a certain part of the face is to be changed, the oil paint can be applied to only the position to be changed. For example, Hsu Hsien in "The White Snake", Pei Yu in "Release Pei", and Chen Lun in "The Flying Cloud Sword" all use the technique of "face blowing". Face blowing" is only suitable for powdered cosmetics, such as gold powder, toner, silver powder, etc. The technique of "face blowing" is also used in the stage. There is a very small box on the floor of the stage, filled with powder, when the actor to do a dance movement on the ground, take the opportunity to face close to the box to blow, the powder on the face, immediately into another color of the face. It is important to note: when blowing, close your eyes, mouth and breath. This is the way of blowing the face of Zidu in "Capturing Zidu Alive" and Le Yangzi in "Ruling Zhongshan". "Face-pulling is a more complicated method of face-changing. It is to draw the face on a piece of silk beforehand, cut it, tie a handful of silk threads on each face, and then stick it on the face one by one. The silk thread is tied to a smooth and inconspicuous place of the clothes (such as on the belt). As the play progresses, it is pulled off one by one under the cover of dance movements. For example, the bowl boy (purple and gold cymbal bowl) in The Legend of the White Snake can change into seven or eight different faces, such as green, red, white, black, and so on. The thief in "The Old Building" and Nie Long in "Wang Niang Beach" also use the "face pulling" technique. There are certain difficulties in "face-pulling". First, there should not be too much adhesive on the face-pieces, so as not to be unable to pull them off, or to pull all of them off at once. Secondly, the movement should be clean and sharp, and the fake movement should be skillful to hide the audience's eyes. There is also a way to "change faces by luck". Legend has it that the late famous Sichuan opera actor Peng Sihong, when playing Zhuge Liang in "The Empty City Plan", was able to use qigong to make his face turn from red to white and then from white to green when the qin boy reported that Sima Yi's army had retreated, which was meant to show Zhuge Liang's fear after he had been relieved of his burden. In short, face-changing in Sichuan Opera is a very excellent skill, and now it has been borrowed by other brother operas, and has been spread abroad

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