Snow in August (2 page)

[I] wish to break away from all the stylizations of traditional Chinese opera, including those of music, singing, dancing, and costuming, but preserve their various performing techniques, such as face-changing and acrobatics.…If someone were to ask me what I mean by “Modern Eastern Theatre,” this play provides one of the answers. (Gao 1991: 243-44)

Contemporary theatre is characterized by the blurring of lines between different genres of performing art. The stage has become a melting pot, mixing drama with comedy routines, magic tricks, song and dance, and clowning techniques and devices. Meyerhold sees theatre as a “revue”: when dancing, clowning, gymnastics, and acrobatics are incorporated into a play, they “can make the performance more diverting and deepen the spectator’s comprehension of it.” (Meyerhold 1998: 254) Artaud insists that “theatre’s sphere is physical and plastic” (Artaud 2001: 137) and finds “spatial poetry” in the physicality of Balinese theatre and sign language (Artaud 2001: 104). In
The Theatre and Its Double
he writes:

To link theatre with expressive form potential, with everything in the way of gestures, sound, colours, movement, is to return it to its original purpose, to restore it to a religious, metaphysical position, to reconcile it with the universe. (Artaud 2001: 136)

Both Meyerhold and Artaud’s ideas have likely influenced Gao Xingjian’s views on the theatre. To Gao, the ideal performance is a blend of physical action, dialogue, and psychology (Quah 2001: 164), but his theatre goes beyond Meyerhold’s goal of deepening the audience’s comprehension, even though that is also what Gao aims to achieve when he insists on communicating with the audience and providing them with a new perceptiveness. He is perhaps more at home with Artaud’s idea of situating theatre at a metaphysical level. However, when Artaud proclaims that theatre exists “to express objectively secret truths, to bring out in active gestures those elements of truth hidden under forms in their encounters with Becoming” (Artaud 2001: 137), Gao would probably respond that his vision is more private, a “One Man’s Bible,” so to speak, or the insight one gets from understanding the self.

In 1988, Gao wrote an essay entitled “In Pursuit of a Modern Drama” (對一種現代劇的追求):

Drama of the future is a kind of total drama. It is a kind of living drama with interactions between actors, actors and characters, characters, actors and audience being enhanced. It is different from the drama which is determined in the rehearsal room like canned products. It encourages spontaneous acting, which fills the theatre with vibrancy. It is like playing communal games. It fully develops every potential of the art. It will not be impoverished. It will collaborate with the artists of spoken language and avoid degenerating into mime or musical. It will be symphonized with multi-visuality. It will push the expressivity of language to its fullest capacity. It is an art that will not be substituted by another form of art. (Gao 1988b: 86, translated by Quah Sy Ren)

Thus his idea of the theatre is a living, vibrant theatre. It is interactive; it is like playing games in a communal setting; and it incorporates language and visual images which are expressive and multiple in its articulation. Furthermore, he aims not only for a multiform crossover, but also for an intercultural synthesis of Eastern and Western traditions. His total theatre aspires to combine the dialogic predilection of the West with the non-verbal physicality—gestures, movement and acrobatics—found in the theatre of the East, changing their techniques, breaking down the barrier between them and harmonizing their differences (Gao 1993: 186).

Eclecticism, then, is the key to Gao Xingjian’s theatre. As he says of
Snow in August
:

… the story of Huineng is of epic proportions, on a par with any drama from the pen of Shakespeare. In fact,
Snow in August
melds Eastern and Western cultures. The form is like that of Shakespearian or Greek tragedy, but the spirit can only have come from the wisdom of the East. (Chang 2002a: 13)

With his characteristic avoidance of identification with the centre, he proceeds to “rewrite” on a peripheral platform the art forms belonging to the collective conscious (in this case Western opera and Beijing opera), that which he considers the main stream, according to his own design and preferences. Gao himself described his production of
Snow in August
as “four unlikes”: unlike opera, unlike traditional Chinese drama, unlike dance, and unlike stage plays (Chang 2002c: 20). “It includes everything, but is not any one thing.” It developed out of Beijing opera and Western opera but was neither, a new theatre that one day would make its way onto the world stage (Chang 2002a: 11).

With this in mind, what do we find in
Snow in August
that may help us better understand his idea of the theatre? The play is made up of three acts. The first two acts dramatize Huineng’s life and death and portray the hero in bold strokes; more importantly, they make visible the spirit of Zen, of which he is the embodiment and manifestation. As the audience is led through the various episodes of Huineng’s life, it appears that Gao Xingjian has abandoned the theatrical experiments of his previous plays and returned to a more traditional, language-based text. Meanwhile, Gao has also incorporated singing and comedic elements, which tend to loosen the plot. The play’s structure is thus made to appear free and casual, breaking away from a naturalistic presentation of Huineng’s life.

Unlike Acts I and II which feature a conventional plot structure, Act III is characterized by free form. It describes in a rather episodic manner, among other things, the practices of various schools of Zen Buddhism more than two hundred years after the death of Huineng. If it can be said to have a storyline—a fire in a Buddhist temple, it is not well defined. In fact, except for the similarity in setting and the presence of the Zen masters, the relevance to Huineng’s story appears tenuous. Huineng passes away at the end of Act II, and for all practical purposes the story has ended when upon Huineng’s death the trees and the mountains in the vicinity suddenly turn white—hence the title “Snow in August.” So why Act III? What function does it serve? Gao has said that it is not necessary for a play to have a balanced or tightly knit plot, but despite having tried his hand at various dramatic forms, he still maintains that structural integrity is essential to any performance (Gao 1993: 187). A salient feature of Gao’s plays in the 1990s is what I would call his “sideshows,” which accompany and complement the main action. In Between
Life and Death
(1991), Woman’s monologue is punctuated by non-speaking segments performed by Man (Woman’s lover), a nun, a headless woman, and a man on stilts. In
Dialogue and Rebuttal
(1992), a monk is always present performing acrobatic tricks alongside the protagonists. These “sideshows” enrich the main action,sometimes providing commentary, sometimes serving as a stimulus for the audience to think and feel for themselves. In light of this, Act III of
Snow in August
is not so atypical, as it can be regarded as an expansion of the sideshow in many of Gao’s plays—a sideshow writ large.

But then again, Act III is more than a sideshow: it is structurally and thematically more important. Hu Yao-heng proposes that Act III depicts an “atmosphere of desolation and absurdity,” and that as the people and the Zen masters are shown to be “shallow” in their understanding of Zen, Act III is a reflection of the period of decline of the Buddhist school founded by Huineng (Hu 2002: 25—26). My view is that the play ends on a positive note. If we say that Huineng’s story in the early part of the play expounds an understanding of Zen in abstract terms, then Act III is the actualisation of life as it should be lived, and if Acts I and II describe the spirit of a saintly patriarch, Act III is the embodiment of that spirit among the people in their everyday lives.

Act III, made up of a number of short episodic sketches, is a kaleidoscope of human activities. First we find Singsong Girl and Writer singing a duet, in which she invokes the names of famous Zen masters, all of whom are Huineng’s disciples and their students. This signifies the passage of time—for instance, Caoshan Benji was the sixth generation disciple of Huineng—and that Zen Buddhism has spread far and wide in China in the span of 250 years. The names are also semantically significant, as they all point to Zen images and symbols. The song is followed by short sketches made up of
koan
questions: What is Buddha? Where is Buddha? The answers are implicitly provided by the ensuing scenes—Buddha is everywhere and resides in all things. Buddha can be found in moving and splitting bricks, carrying wooden planks, practicing martial arts, doing acrobatic tricks, performing “face changing,” squabbling with one another, singing songs, and doing crazy things. This is reinforced by Singsong Girl’s repetition of her song at the beginning of the Act, again invoking the names of Huineng’s disciples, the Zen masters who have become Buddhas. Then there is the cat-chasing and fire-setting farce, with many characters running around on stage, culminating in Big Master “chopping” (presumably) the cat into two halves, which is one of the manifestations of “craziness” in the Zen Buddhist repertoire. The finale consists mainly of songs sung by all the on-stage characters: Singsong Girl, Writer, all the monks and laymen.They sing of life and death, sickness and health, war and disaster, and the succession of the old by the new, in other words, all the conditions of being human. Life goes on as it should, and the best attitude is to carry on leading our lives as usual and doing the things we have to do. In this way, one will find Buddha and enlightenment. As Gao says, “Zen does not manufacture mystery; it is an understanding. It is eating, drinking, shitting, pissing, and sleeping as usual. It is only an attitude towards living, a thorough understanding of the world and of life.” (Gao 1992c: 195) The idea is not to strive; with non-action and no-mind, one will achieve enlightenment living in the human world and doing worldly things.

Gao Xingjian always talks about the creative impulse in terms of an “inner pulsing”:

The making of an artist is due to his ability to relate his shadowy feelings and impulses to observable images. The “aesthetic sphere”(
yijing
意境), so valued in Chinese art and poetry, is entrusting one’s mental state to scenery and reaching the spirit by means of images.” (Gao 2001b: 189-90)

The same principle informs
Snow in August
, i.e. the spirit of “big freedom” of Zen is revealed through the description of Huineng’s life, the
indépendance totale
which allows him to act as he pleases to achieve Buddhahood.

To Gao Xingjian, freedom is of the utmost importance in life as in art. Thus the idea of complete abandonment and the latent anti-establishment inclination of Zen appeal to him tremendously. He values his freedom living in exile in France, and he talks about theatre and freedom in the same breath, hoping that the theatrical form, as performance, can enjoy the same kind of freedom as in fiction, poetry and other literary genres. In his view, the theatre is not free—it is bound by its inherent spatial and temporal limitations, the conventions of scene divisions and the “dead-end alley” of naturalism. In his pursuit of a new theatrical form, Gao strives for the kind of freedom that is not restricted by space or time, something akin to the freedom enjoyed by traditional Chinese opera and literature. When this is accomplished,

all kinds of spatial and temporal relationships are possible in the theatre, interweaving fantasy and reality, recollections and imaginations, thinking and dreams, and symbols and narration. The result is multi-level visual imagery. And when this is accompanied by polyglossia, it will lead to multiplicity, which is more appropriate for the molds of perception and thinking of modern men. (Gao 1988a: 137)

Gao’s idea of “omnipotent theatre” is associated with and defined by his idea of freedom. As director of
Snow in August
, he wanted everything to start from zero. He required his actors, who had been schooled in Beijing opera, to “set aside [their] traditional moves and postures, set aside all the existing forms of Peking Opera, and start everything afresh”—they were to be spontaneous, and to extricate themselves from Beijing opera completely, so that they could develop the characters according to their own feelings towards their roles and the storyline (Chang 2002b: 13).
Snow in August
is the manifestation of Gao Xingjian’s understanding of the essence of Zen (Fu 2002: 246), which has provided him with the inspiration and the means to carry out his ideas of theatre and dramatic performance. As he says, “Zen is both extrication and a spiritual sphere. Human beings are confined to a specific time and space, and they want to pursue freedom. Zen is an inspiration to artists living in the world of reality.” (Gao 2001a: 146-47) In embodying an integrative vision of form and content,
Snow in August
comes close to being Gao Xingjian’s ideal theatre.

A few words on the translation. My aim is to produce a close and faithful rendering of the play. I intend the translation to be natural, so that it will flow with the ease of original composition in English. However, there are also times when it is appropriate to preserve the Chineseness of the source text. The wordplays and puns are retained as much as possible, as are the songs and their rhymes—I try to resist the temptation to sacrifice sense and naturalness for the sake of rhyming.

The reader may find that the register of the dialogue may appear to fluctuate. At times it may appear formal, as befits the mannerisms, grace and solemnity of religious discourse; at other times it may be colloquial and closer to everyday conversation. This was done in adherence to the original style of the source text, which, like Gao Xingjian’s theatre, seeks to be all-encompassing and integrative.

I hope that the translation can serve both as a performance text for the stage as well as a reading text, which can be enjoyed as literature and subjected to analysis with all the original literariness intact and unsullied. Translation is always a matter of choice and balance. I also hope that I have made the right choices and struck the right balance that this fascinating theatrical piece deserves.