Taiwan Today

In the Republic of China, Chin Shih-chieh to the Lan Ling Theater Workshop is Lin Hwai-min to the Cloud Gate Dance Ensemble, or Kuo Hsiao-chuang to the Graceful Melody Opera Workshop.

Seven years ago, Chin Shih-chieh came across a short novel, The Tien-sheng Marionette Group; it tells the story or how three generations of the group's leaders sacrificed themselves for their art form. Chin was deeply impressed by this selfless - though somewhat frightening - devotion.

Since then, Chin has been a mad collector of marionette faces - not directly, but in the form of masks and depictions of masks. The four walls or his bedroom are decorated with a swarm of masks, overflowing to table tops and racks. Even his bed is partly occupied by masks. The most con­spicuous item is a poster on a wall picturing the distorted faces or Japanese puppets on a dark ground. "To me, they are the races of players floating up from a theater stage. Sometimes they are alive but motionless. An audience may discover strings attached to a certain corner. In darkness, only the profile is visible. Theatrical performers are a bit absurd in that they spend most or their time on a stage, which is separated from the ground. In a way, they can be called marionettes," Chin elaborated.

Looking back over his own ten-year devotion to the theatrical arts, Chin cannot help asking him­self the question: "What are you looking for? Does it mean anything to you even if you do find out?" When he came across a puppeteer controlling his marionettes, Chin began to doubt that it was the operator who controlled the puppets... perhaps it was the other way round.

In the former case, why should the operator pull the strings? Does he have a strong will to control? Is he just lonely? Or is he eager to speak his mind? What does he feel when the marionettes are being nicely controlled... and when they're not? According to Chin, it is possible that the marionettes have no idea that they are fastened by strings. Though, more often than not, they know they have strings. What then would be their reaction... would they fight back, or would they be pleased with a stringless condition because they would have a good opportunity to be lazy? The relationship may be so complicated that the puppets may be metamorphosed from rebel to yes-man and vice versa.

Feeling that many of the ties of our everyday lives - husband and wife, father and son, friends and foes - are fashioned from invisible strings, Chin Shih-chieh was inspired to present a panto­mime entitled "Puppet Man," one of the two puppet programs presented during the Taipei Arts Festival from September 1 to 5.

Chin pointed out that there are several types of puppets in theatrical usage - wood, paper, stringed, those fastened to the top of a staff, even "human" puppets. He has been deeply impressed by cartoon puppets since his childhood. Linked to all these is the art of ventriloquy, which originated in the West ages ago and has the same function as a puppet show. For instance, when you return home from work after an exhausting day, a dummy in your hand may tell you via ventriloquy to take a rest. In reality, you are comforting yourself.

Chin remembered that once he met a puppet­eer who was unconsciously imitating his stringed puppets; only, his facial expressions were more exaggerated and telltale. "He took a walk in a leisurely manner later, and I discovered something unusual about him. It suddenly came to my mind that he was repeating one of his puppets' gaits," Chin said.

Continuing with humans, he said an actor must put in strenuous effort time and again to per­fect certain gestures or to properly utter a line. In fact, the actor is trying to reach something hidden in his life. For instance, an actor may lose his appe­tite trying to play the role of a butcher, a hit man, or a rich man in ancient China. He is ecstatic if this happens. The absurdity lies in the fact that he is only playing someone else.

Therefore, from the angle of a normal person, an actor is far from normality and estranged from the public's true face. In fact, he is one hundred percent marionette. Through the puppet master and his troupe of stringed marionettes, Chin wants not only to point out the performing artists' absurdity, but to pry into the conflict, struggle, and complex interaction between free will and fatalism.

He expounded: "On the surface, an actor must forego his ego. But, in retrospect, does a man have an ego, since your birth, your sex, rank, race, outlook, education, name, and date etc. are decided? I admit that fatalism is a leit-motif of the 'Puppet Man.'''

Even under such circumstances, a man's free will gradually takes shape. When this free will is in conflict with fatalism, a man begins to build up his own value.

In the pantomime, the old puppet master is rising up against the pressures of time and senility. The old marionette in his cast represents the shadowy pressure - and fear - of time. The puppeteer uses his right hand to pull the string, and wrestles with the old puppet using his left hand. Though he finally wins, he fails to realize that it is his left hand that outdoes his right hand. He has created a trove of new marionettes only to counterattack the pressure of death and senility imposed by the old puppet, a full revelation of his aspiration and love for life itself.

After fashioning the young puppets, the old master decides to instill life in them, to mold them into several stereotypes. Limited by the nature born within, each of them displays strong characteristics. Chin Shih-chieh arranges the scene to reiterate his interpretation of fatalism. For instance, Chris Doyle, the only foreign actor in Lan Ling, plays a familiar type who craves for power and has a sadist's dominating character. Chin wants to show that a man's behavior is great­ly influenced by both his outlook and his star.

Chin was also inspired to create inseparable female twins by Ionesco's Waiting for Godot. The twins are Koko and Titi and are joined by their hands forever. Good or bad, they incorporate vile trickery and are inseparable.

In Scene III, the new puppets stage a play within a play, which is an epitome for the whole pantomime. The old puppet's death symbolizes the aged puppeteer's exorcism of such bondages as time and rules... and his hope for new life. The old puppet however, turns down this arrangement, deepening the old master's fear; he decides to sever the puppet's string. Superficially, he only cuts off the old puppet's control line; in reality, he has cut off the root connection of his own life, a hint for the conclusion of the play.

After the old marionette dies, the new puppets grow conscious of their own fates. Some fight back against this fatalism. Some struggle hard. Some feel curious about it. But basically, they are all terror-stricken because they have no way to escape their destinies.

The actors' make-up is entirely from the world of stringed puppets. The whitewash color of the faces signifies their desolate fate. The contours painted on the white ground show the puppets' melancholy, sleekness, and happiness.

From the beginning, the Chinese performing arts have contracted inseparable ties with funeral services, worship ceremonies, the driving off of evil spirits and ghosts. The puppets have always been the masters of this limbo. Their psychological experiences on the stage have been very complicated.

Local artist Chiang Hsun sees the counterpart of Chin's pantomime “Puppet Man" in the Russian dance-opera “Petrouchka," composed by Fokine in 1911.Its theme centers on the conflict between man and God in Western culture.

Inheriting the folk tradition of Russian culture, the puppet master of “Petrouchka” is an almighty god, while Petrouchka is the reflection of all mankind. He was manipulated by God. After performing in the marketplace, he is thrown back into a small wooden box, lonely and solitary. He wants to rid himself of his master's control and find freedom in the outside world. At the end of the play, the master returns home listlessly. Petrouchka, who was born again and has obtained freedom, makes faces at the master from a rooftop. When the master flees in great panic, Petrouchka is again lost, hanging in the night sky of an empty, lonesome Russia.

"Petrouchka" describes mankind's pursuit after free will, its rebellion against master-creator and fate, and its vulnerability to the emptiness of life.

Chin Shih-chieh's “Puppet Man" also looks into mankind's free will. When the eight marionettes finally kill the puppeteer who controls their fate, the audience is brought into full observation of the sharp, cruel, relentless relationship between man and his fate.

Some absurdly comic scenes can be found backstage: A woman putting on a classic head-piece wears a pair of modern high-heel shoes. An old lady suddenly utters some lines in a hoarse, low voice. A devil with two horns eats a sack-lunch bought from a nearby market. Sometimes a man-size and obviously domesticated cat asks you where the rest room is. In the end, you are totally unsure. - Are you human or inhuman?

Compared with "Puppet Man," the second performance, entitled “Social Text,” flows in a quicker, lighter, comic tempo. This play is written and directed by Tung Ta-lung. Chin Shih-chieh plays solo in the 30-minute humorous, but ironic and sarcastic drama.

As a writer herself, Tung is especially sensitive to the impact of the mass media, printing in particular, on the social public.

When the curtain rises, Chin Shih-chieh is waked by a string of music, and there and then starts his activities for the day.

Chin studied the art of mime under renowned pantomime master Yass Hakoshima when the latter was invited to perform in Taipei. With an outstanding stature and posture and nimble muscles and joints, Chin is in the very good condition required of a pantomimist.

Since daybreak, Chin has felt the impact of newspaper headlines. A billboard standing to the left of the stage displays 70-odd headlines (written by Chinese brush-pen) - such eye catchers as: “Palestinians Leave West Beirut, "Arafat's Whereabouts Are an Enigma, “Chinese Communists Make Wild Attempt to Invade Taiwan - Military Operations Continue in the Coastal Areas of Fukien Province," “'ROC Government and People Protest Japanese Distortion of History”… and other sensational declarations.

When the insurance salesman arrives at his company at 9:30 a.m., he is at once submerged in paperwork and social pleasantries. But posters continually inform the audience that he is also constantly under the influence of signboards, traffic directions, greeting cards, popular songs, and even rest room “literature.” Under such circumstances, people are embarrassed… blind to their whereabouts.

Though these messages are taken for granted in our everyday life, they have penetrated into modern man's reactions and activities via numerous channels. The public is powerless to resist them but must cultivate an "Ah Q" spirit to accommodate, and to laugh them off.

Some episodes - such as Chin locking himself up in a restroom, or hesitating to leave the theater as the movie approaches its climax, even though he is being paged - remind the audience of a familiar side of the city.

Tung ended the play in five different ways; one ends with Chin's death as the four walls crush him. Tung explained: "After all, this is an experimental drama, I don’t want to be too demanding and dominating. I spent half an afternoon and a whole night composing the 30 minutes of 'Social Text.' My experiences and feelings about mass media headlines motivated me to draw a picture of a man's love affairs, anger, dependence, disturbance, nobleness, and humbleness in this society. These are put together at random, without cause or effect. In this way, I thought to underline the irony of everyday life."

Though only four years old, the Lan Ling Theater Workshop has aged well, creating and staging new plays every year. From such old pieces as "Ho Chu's New Match," "Cat's Paradise," "Homework," "Burden," and “Rooster and Apartment" to today's “Puppet Man" and "Social Text," its productions have won critical applause. The members of the workshop have lived up to the expectations of the warrior-king Lan Ling, the patron saint of Chinese theater.

The workshop began when veteran members Chin Shih-chieh and Cho Ming took over the Tien Experimental Theater Group, gathering around them a troupe of friends addicted to the cinematic and theatrical arts. Members of the workshop are from all walks of life, and include nurses, public functionaries, photographers, students, TV hosts, housewives, and others. They meet often at the workshop after a day's work. As they grew more familiar with each other, each developed a nickname - such as "Mediterranean," “Kimbo," or "Piggy."

On the recommendation of Professors Yao Yi-wei and Ku Hsien-liang, the workshop invited Professor Wu Jing-jyi, a Ph.D. in educational psychology who was once associated with La MaMa Experimental Theater Club in New York, to be their instructor.

Realizing that the Chinese are by nature reserved and shy, Prof. Wu encourages new theater members to relax first. Then they are encouraged to imitate the calls and gestures of animals, to tell stories, to play games, or to “talk to tables and chairs" in attempts to fully express themselves. Many leave, partly because some are only motivated by underlying attitudes of desire for psychological treatment via attending classes, and some because the exercises prove harder than they imagined.

Those who remain begin to discover that certain mental and physical blockages break down, and that mind and body start to flow in unison. They tap the precious mime of man's different faces - honesty, selfishness, idealism, rationalism, absurdity, sturdiness, weakness - which prove to be the root causes of their own creation. The training program is based on the belief that each country's cultural heritage is also essential, so the actors are required to undergo Peking-opera training. The actors must show facility in depicting such qualities and emotions as seductiveness, anger, suspicion, and happiness, first using their eyes, and then their mouths, heads, and hands separately before using all together - part of the Workshop's isolation training program.

Today, every member of Lan Ling is credited with being so versatile that each is actor, director, and script writer rolled into one. "I never even dreamed I could be an actor, let alone a writer," said one member. “The creative strength I find on stage turns me into a sensitive person. What matters most is not that I am an actor, but that am a ‘rich' person. I portray all human emotions. For instance, I like to observe people on the bus and try to imagine their stories. Lan Ling provides an environment for all its members to fully develop their creative potentials. I am rewarded by all my performances; I think the stage is a fascinating career.”

Lan Ling may well be a harbinger of a new spring in the relatively dormant field of Chinese theater. But, if a splendid summer and a rich autumn harvest are to follow, the public will have to give these enthusiastic young artists the encouragement they surely deserve.