THE SHADOW PLAY, wayang kulit, is the great storyteller of Balinese village life. It uses puppets that are flat, Cut Out Of Leather, cowhide. The puppeteer, the dalang, tells the story, which is usually from the Ramayana or the other epic the Mahabharata (War of the Bh2ratas), a sort of Indian Iliad. The dalang also provides the sound-effects, and there are accompanying musicians with gamelan instruments. The puppeteer sits behind a screen. The light is always the flame from an oil lamp: even where electricity is available it is not used, because there is a certain dramatic quality to the flicker and glow of the oil flame

`For the visitor wayang kulit is dubiously worth hearing, because we cannot understand what is being said; but anyone interested in the graphic arts will find it worth seeing, for half an hour any way. The shadow shapes arc so decorative, for the leather is cut to produce much more than a simple silhouette. Details of bodies and faces are delineated by lace- like cutting and piercing of the leather, and the rich design of a prince's headdress, say, is patterned in pinpoints of light. The arms of the puppets arc movable and, in some, the lower jaw. The bad characters arc always on the left side of the screen, the good ones on the night. A stylized tree is most of the scenery.

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