Chinese culture was divided into a northern Yellow River Valley version and a southern Yangtze River Valley system at the time; Chu Tsu has long been regarded as the representative literary work of the southern culture and, also, as a major southern cultural resource.
The southern Yangtze River Valley has been more richly endowed by nature as compared with the northern Yellow River Valley. Its enchanting scenic vistas—green fields jeweled with flowers and marked here and there by mystic smoky mists—have long been credited as incubators for a general richness of imagination among the southern Chinese. Their religious beliefs pay due respect to witchcraft and ghosts, as well as multiple deities, reflecting a clear abundance of fancy.
The Chiu Ko (literally "Nine Songs"), originally worship songs of the ancient southern Chinese people, are thought to have been rearranged by Chu Yuan during his banishment from the royal court to the wastelands of the now-vanished Chu kingdom (in present Hunan Province). More than two thousand years ago, the associated myths, worship rites, and dances were lost. However, the song lyrics, owing to their dramatically romantic flavor and vividly ornate expression, have since come to be regarded as a classic Chinese literary treasure; they have certainly stirred the boundless imagination of all later generations.
In Chiu Ko, the deities are grand, but personalized: Tung Huang Tai I is first among gods, like Zeus in Greek mythology; Tung Chun is the sun god; Yun Chung Chun, the cloud god; Hsiang Chun and Hsiang Fu Jen, respectively, god and goddess of the Hsiang River (the major Hunan Province waterway); Shan Kui, goddess of mountains; Ta Szu Ming, the god controlling birth and death; Shao Szu Ming, the god of fortune; and Ho Po, a general river goddess.
As inferred from the songs, the ancient worship rites were conducted in a specifically romantic fashion: If the worshiped deity was male, a wizard would play the god, and a witch would then play the role of a female human who had fallen in love with him; the two would sing in dialogue, responding to each other in adoring terms. If the deity was female, the wizard and witch roles would be exchanged.
Throughout the ages, scholars have individually offered different interpretations of the Chiu Ko. Sweet grasses, rare flowers, and strange birds and beasts, for example, are repeatedly presented in the book to both symbolize elements in the southern ideology and describe relationships between man and nature. These have also—always—provided every possible vantage for the scholarly imagination. The possibility of presenting the Chiu Ko in drama or dance has repeatedly intrigued theatrical artists; only the greatly differing interpretations by the scholars made them hesitate.
The Lan Ling Theater Workshop, an outstanding experimental theater group in the Republic of China, has now adapted the classic work to the dramatic stage, content to interpret it in its own way.
According to playwright Hsi Sung, in his new play Chiu Ko, the worship rites dramatizing love between deities and humans simply mirror the constant efforts of ancient human beings to correlate truly with nature, which they confronted as part of the mystery of the cosmos.
The Chiu Ko deities, he stressed, actually represent natural elements—the setting for human existence. He noted, for example, that mankind's search for fortune and fear of unpredictable fate and death are clearly reflected in the Chiu Ko selections concerning Shao Szu Ming and Ta Szu Ming.
In ancient Chinese society, said Hsi, and in surviving practice among primitive peoples, through worship rites involving singing and dancing, the consciousness of the boundary between the ego and the external world can be eventually eliminated; the worshipper attains that "sacred sense of intoxication" that blends heaven and earth: "Indeed, this is a kind of spiritual cultivation most lacking among modern people, who live in exceedingly artificialized environments and, daily, face serious urbanization hazards and growing alienation," he added.
The last two sentences of Chiu Ko's final selection, under the heading Li Hun ("A Salute to Souls") reads: "Orchids are used in spring worship, and chrysanthemums in autumn worship; may the worship rites never be broken off, but passed on through the ages to come." According to Lan Ling producer Wu Ching-chi, that was indeed our ancient forbears' great desire: "It is with this same dedicated outlook that Lan Ling now ponders the elements of modern urban life; we hope to present the classical Chiu Ko rite via theater, and help create an interlude of spiritual purification for modern people."
Director Cho Ming decided on arena theater—a kind of environmental theater—for the presentation of the new play. Arena theater diverges from the traditional proscenium theater in permitting an audience, in a circular auditorium, to experience the play in its midst rather than as "a presentation"—a more participatory circumstance.
"Basically, our play Chiu Ko is in the form of a rite. The feeling of this play-rite must be environmental. I want the audience to see the play from a down-looking vantage—to have differing angles of view of the acts of the play," said Cho.
The Lan Ling presentation offers neither plot nor dialogue. Mood and circumstances are everything. The audience will be expected to cast away its usual habits in viewing drama—to sharpen its perceptiveness and identify itself completely with the cast. Hence, the performance environment and atmosphere will be intentionally built via lighting, rhythms, dances, settings, costumes, etc., to assist the audience to complete its "baptism" in Chiu Ko.
In the first act, "Modern Worship Rite," director Cho establishes a popular rock concert as "modern worship." People, having almost lost religious depth of feeling, now see the rock singer as their officiant. Players before the stage now scream and shout to blend with the deafening musical renditions. They are oblivious to stage-prop clothing and newspapers falling upon them now, symbols of environmental clutter, mass media pressure, and violence.
"In this modern vision, I want the audience to feel like it does when reading the day's news: A lot of headlines are before you. You can roughly scan them or read certain stories in detail if they interest you," said Cho.
The rock-and-roll star, adored by the crowd, at last steps down from the stage to survey all the spiritually damaged people (meanwhile, trying to keep them closely syncopated both in life and musically). He tries to teach an insane man to play the drums, and is eventually killed by the man with a drum.
In sharp contrast, Act II, "Tung Huang Tai I," is characterized by silence and solemnity. Hereafter, the play is in the ancient world of the Chiu Ko worship rites.
The players are primitive men, clad in animal skins and leaves, and they display facial tattoos. As they enter the theater, each carries a heavy stone in his hands. They set the stones in a circle before a stage setting depicting a mountain. Via the creation of this stone circle at the beginning of the sacred rites, the worshippers inform the deities of their purpose. On the other hand, they remind the audience that they are rational men, and purposeful.
The vault of the theater has now become the universe of the almighty creator Tung Huang Tai I, who has sent forth Tung Chun, the sun, which is most meaningful to life on earth.
The dead rock singer of the first act is now the ancient officiant, leading an orderly group of primitive men in ritual, mystic communion with nature. Completely apart from civilization, and humble and respectful, the worshippers turn clock-round slowly, "following the revolving sun," their slowly twisting bodies emulating rite elements from sunrise to sunset.
This second act symbolizes civilization's shaking-off of red tape and participation in the universal essence.
Noiselessly, the theater moves to Act III, "Yun Chung Chun and Hsiang Fu Jen."
Cho Ming remarked that because the play had no plot at all, the characters were given some connections: Yun Chung Chun and Hsiang Fu Jen thus carry the main line of emotion in the play.
One of the most romantic and exquisite themes in the Chiu Ko is a universal "love-melancholy." It is made even more impressive when the humanized god and goddess are directly involved. In the play, Yun Chung Chun, god of clouds, is an "ambassador god," sent by the almighty Tung Huang Tai I to communicate with ordinary people on earth. Since his mission takes him everywhere, he is often far from his beloved Hsiang Fu Jen.
The heart of the elegant Hsiang Fu Jen, goddess of the Hsiang River, though she is deeply in love with Yun Chung Chun, is filled with hesitation and fear of actually expressing her love. To haunting chants, the two move closer with stately gait, yet remain eternally separate.
The costumes for this act are most impressive. White, multi-folding garments for Yun Chung Chun naturally evoke cloud images. And the long-trailing robes and sleeves of Hsiang Fu Jen, in addition to stirring an image of flowing water, also present fantasy symbols of a flowered boat and garlanded altar.
Act IV, "Shao Szu Ming," is in emotional contrast to the preceding act. Shao Szu Ming, god of fortune, is molded as an incarnation of the pursuit of desire. His spontaneously externalized quest for love is in total contradiction to the reserved nature of Hsiang Fu Jen. However, it also facilitates the true, inner expectations of Hsiang Fu Jen beneath all her external restraint.
The arrangements of untrammelled motion in the act stir general audience admiration. The shaking of reeds and rhythmical striking of stones and bamboo bars help compose an exciting experience of primitive love.
Elements of this act purposefully echo a rape scene in the first act: A rite of life continuation, sacred originally, degenerated to criminal violence in modern times. Portrayed by the same players as in Act I, its meaning is now changed—purified.
Shan Kui, the mountain goddess, in Act V, revives the restrained emotion of Hsiang Fu Jen (in Act III). Shan Kui, lonely on the top of a mountain (in the theater, she is symbolically supported by two men), has only her shadow as company. Now, Hsiang Fu Jen passes low-spiritedly across the theater. Her long restrained emotion was never freed; she has been left only with the never-attained expectation and ideal.
Ta Szu Ming, the deity controlling life and death, in Act VI, for the purpose of Li Hun, wears a mask of great seriousness. His outer garment, a symbol of enduring Chinese religious festival flags which call to the spirit world, is separated and held outward by a follower. Ta Szu Ming instructs small officiants, symbolizing vultures, to dispose of corpses before their corruption—clearly, a natural phenomenon of ecological recirculation.
The full act not only salutes the dead, but evokes concern over the fatigued souls of the living (recalling the first act, where modern people's wounded hearts needed spiritual consolation).
The final act, "Sending Deities," is also the shortest. All players, each with candle in hand, circle a central altar in a rite to inform the deities that the worship ceremony is finished, so they may depart. The restful, silent atmosphere is then gradually overcome by blended noises—vehicles, voices, and other sounds—and audience and actors are back in the present.
The production is extremely beautiful, successfully capturing complex aesthetic emotions with light and shadow, rhythmical motion, harmonious chanting, and vivid colors.
In order to help prepare the forty-some players, city-reared and strangers to nature, Chen Wei-cheng and Liu Ching-ming, who have been studying theater in the United States with Grotovsky, led the actors on an eight day sojourn in the Tapang Mountain area in Chiayi County. There, all concerned breathed and moved in rhythm with nature. Later, in the theater, they were to transmit the emotion and comprehension to the audience.
Hsi Sung's Chiu Ko was not totally adopted for actual performance. But through the totality of the writing, he says, a most vivid sentence appeared frequently in his mind: "The human body is a home of gods; open the door, and let the gods step out."
"Finally, in the auditorium, the understanding levels among the audience will vary greatly. I can only provide the 'atmosphere of circumstance,' and the rest is searched out or pondered by each observer.
"The reason I used 'circumstance' instead of 'plot' to frame this particular play is that, over the thousands of years, the sun has always been there, and so the moon, the mountains, the seas, the earth, the rivers, and so forth. And they never tell people any story or teach any lesson. Men can only make contact with all this with minds and hearts. When a performance ends, what I really hope for is not ardent applause from the audience, but its meditation after seeing the play," said director Cho Ming.
Of course, the extant original Chiu Ko work is a literary experience that has always allowed so much possibility for imagination, that every reader could set up his own subjective world of Chiu Ko.
Lan Ling has presented its own version for constructive effect: a review and criticism—modern urban life sharply contrasted with (gentler) ancient times. And the underline: "Nature has its copyright too. Men should complement the life of nature rather than destroy it."