Writing at the same time as Shakespeare and Montaigne, Wu took the historically verified pilgrimage of the Buddhist priest Hsüan-tsang from China to India to obtain sacred texts, then crafted an allegorical story complete with historical and supernatural figures.
Hsüan-tsang's own record of his journey is in fact an important firsthand description of central Asia and India of the period, and his biography by a contemporary scholar provides further details and an inspiring description of a man brave, devout, and prepared to face any danger to accomplish his mission.
Journey to the West introduces Hsüan-tsangas as such a character, and then confronts him with obstacles beyond the power of any mortal to surmount. But if his opponents have become supernatural, so have his guides and assistants. The most important of the three is a fabulous monkey, invulnerable and endowed with infinite resourcefulness, who assists the monk (called Tripitaka in the novel) to reach his goal—which has also changed and is now the Western Paradise.
In fact, Tripitaka becomes a minor character in comparison with Monkey, who is the real protagonist of the fairy tale series of subplots and adventures. Along with a supernaturally transformed pig and river monster, Monkey and Tripitaka take the reader through 81 action-packed episodes (the multiple 9 X 9 has religious and mystical significance) in 100 chapters.
Important beyond the delightfulness of the story itself is another key fact: there is a strong undercurrent of satire which makes journey to the West an acute criticism of the Ming Dynasty society and bureaucracy of Wu's time.
And it is in this same traditional vein of insightful criticism that the latest Monkey has appeared in Taipei—this time on the stage, and in opera form. Modern man and his social environment come in for equal doses of critical assessment as the liveliness of a novel known by all Chinese is given a postmodern spin, and simultaneously shows the creative power of the contemporary arts scene in Taiwan.
When a local theatre group named the Performance Workshop was commissioned by the National Theatre to produce and opera entitled "Journey to the West, " many people expected a simplified musical version of the novel, complete with monsters bustling about on stage to the special delight of the children in the audience. Wrong.
Script writer and director Stan Lai (Lai Sheng-Chuan) had something different in mind, something far more complex and sophisticated. When he reread the novel, he was a parallel between the ancient story and 20th Century phenomena. "For the past hundred years, the story of Journey to the West has been repeated in China in various forms. Look around us, we find many Tripitakas, restless monkeys, lazy pigs, and kindly river monsters, " Lai says. In his own opera version, the 81 episodes are limited to seven stages in the journey of life for three different characters, each one from a different time and place.
Monkey is the only character in the opera borrowed exactly from the original novel. His story is based on the novel's first seven chapters, which tells the story of how Monkey leaves his pristine paradise in the Flower Fruit Mountain in search of immortality, attains it after a long journey, then later arrives in heaven and creates general chaos through his mischievous pranks. He is finally subdued by the Buddha and imprisoned in the Five Element Mountain in punishment for his undisciplined ways. The Buddha says there he must stay until he is needed for a momentous task—he will be rescued by the monk Tripitaka on his sacred trip to the West. Thus far, the opera treads familiar ground.
But the original Tripitaka becomes two characters in Lai's opera. The first, who retains the name Tripitaka, is cast as a member of the late 19th Century Ching Dynasty literati. While on the way to the capital to the imperial examinations, he changes course and heads instead toward the West in search of holy scripture. The episode which forces him to change directions comes from the original novel: the famous General Wei Cheng has a dream in which he kills a dragon. The emperor, who sits on the "Dragon Throne, " takes it as a bad omen and wants a daring man to go to the West for the holy scripture. This person, the emperor believes, will be the country's (and his own) savior.
The second incarnation of the original Tripitaka in the opera is a contemporary Taipei man named Ah-Tsang. He has just passed the standard examinations required of students before they are allowed to study abroad, and his quest for an advanced degree becomes his own journey to the West, a decision that requires him to leave his girlfriend in Taipei.
While working in a Chinese restaurant in Los Angeles, Ah-Tsang hires a lawyer to arrange a fake marriage with an American so that he can acquire the "green card" for U.S. residence. His journey becomes one of no return, and leads to the loss of his girlfriend, his Chinese identity, and ultimately his death.
The three stories of Monkey, Tripitaka, and Ah-Tsang are separate entities, yet are woven together through complex staging techniques. Sometimes the characters appear individually, and at other times are juxtaposed at opposite sides of the stage, mixing dialogue and action in subtle—and often critical—exchanges.
As if the story were not complex enough for the mind. Lai has also challenged his audiences' endurance. There are seven acts lasting a total of three and a half hours. As the three characters move through the seven stations of life's journey, they appear at first to be moving in the linear, forward direction. Wrong again. There is mathematical complexity here best illustrated by the effort required in "reading" a mandala, which captures the mysteries of the universe in its complex, yet repetitious design.
Lai's seven acts are structured in a contrapuntal way so that Act 7 harmonizes with and amplifies Act 1; Act 6 is paired with Act 2: Act 5 with Act 3; and Act 4 is the focal point, like the center of the mandala. The apparent linear progression evident in the first part of the opera becomes regression from Act 4 onwards. The stations of life begin "deteriorating through time to the point of being unrecognizable by the travels, " Lai explains.
The audience is forewarned. The opera curtain hiding the stage as the members of the audience find their seats is in the form of gigantic Tibetan mandala, designed by artist Chen Chao-pao; it seems to say: "Beware the complexities that lie before you. " These are rampant, as Lai has constructed the journey of the opera itself to move from the outside toward the center and then come out again from the inside, identical to a Tibetan mandala.
"In my original idea, there was to be no intermission throughout the play," Lai adds. "I left a buffer period at the end of each act for changing scenes. In this way, the Tibetan mandala arrangement is more clearly detected. But I later learned that the musician needed a break in order to tune their instruments, so now two intermissions divide the opera into three sections. I'm afraid the structural integrity is weakened."
But Lai need not worry about breaks in continuity, for the story lines survive undamaged: Tripitaka ages (one of Buddhism's Four Noble Truths); Ah-tsang's home deteriorates; and the land withers from neglect, a timely environmental message. By the last act, Monkey has been imprisoned, Tripitaka is a tired old man who can hardly walk, and Ah-tsang ends his journey in a hospital a very sick man. Then a final complexity, a Buddhist recurrent cycle of existence: at the conclusion of the play, Tripitaka meets the Monkey, and, according to the original novel, frees Monkey from captivity and they commence their journey to India. "It is the journey of Tripitaka and Monkey, as well as the archetypal journey in the Chinese mind," Lai says. Repetition is the nature of the universe-never exact in content, yet similar in form.
The opera is an illustration of another recurring journey: a journey of thought in the mind of Lai himself. Some of his deepest concerns have been the disconnection of Chinese tradition and individual identity, and the ambiguous pursuits of modern man. This creative orientation is reflected in his earlier plays, The Other Evening We Put on a Show of Hsiang Sheng and Secret Lover/ The Peach-blossom Fount. In July 1986, when the National Theatre commissioned him to write an opera, he immediately thought of expressing these themes through an adaptation of Journey to the West, one of his favorite novels.
In preparation, he reread the novel several times. Additional meanings arose in his mind which he had missed in earlier readings—ideas he thinks are overlooked by most Chinese. He was determined to emphasize what he saw as the philosophical implications of the novel: the entire journey is a process of cultivating the mind, and the characters of Monkey, the Pig, and the river monster represent different faces of Tripitaka as well as everyman.
Lai was also intrigued by the structure of the novel. He asked himself, "Why are the first seven chapters out of the entire 100 dedicated to the story of Monkey, and why does Tripitaka appear only in the eighth chapter?" Lai concentrated on the first seven chapters, and was amazed at the profound implications which seemed totally compatible with his own concerns. He saw the Flower Fruit Mountain where Monkey lives as an Eden for all Chinese people; Monkey, the incarnation of something every Chinese treasures, attains immortality and will exist forever; and, in addition, the episode of Monkey, besieged by many powerful deities, reminded Lai of late Ching Dynasty history when China was besieged by foreign powers. His careful reading gradually gave rise to the direction of his opera.
Lai expanded his background research by asking friends in Hong Kong and the U.S. to help collect historical documents on the events of the late Ching Dynasty. After four months they had found copies of the unequal treaties between China and foreign nations, detailed personal data about the first group of Chinese students to study abroad, reports on Chinese impressions of foreigners when foreign missionaries first arrived in China, and other materials.
Meanwhile, Lai made his own trip to the West. He flew to Paris to exchange ideas with Chen Chao-pao, the eventual art designer of the opera. A few days later, he flew to Washington D.C. to meet music composer Chen Chien-tai. They talked at length each evening, and Chen eventually determined what sort of structure and content Lai wanted, while contributing his own ideas to further develop Lai's concept—as well as reminding Lai of the practical problems in converting a stage script into an opera.
On days Chen was busy with his job, Lai wandered alone making a mental journey of his own. His thoughts were stimulated by visiting his childhood neighborhood in Georgetown where he had spent the first seven years of his life, by seeing friends of his parents who had migrated from mainland China after the Communist takeover, and by reflecting on his high school and university years in Taiwan and on his doctoral studies in dramatic art at the University of California at Berkeley. The journey of Chinese to the West over several generations occupied his mind, one picture overlapping another. Gradually, out of these intricate thoughts, a three-strand plot emerged, and the opera took shape.
After returning to Taipei, Lai worked on the script and lyrics for months, completing both in December of 1986. Lai's eight previous theatre productions were jointly-written and were more improvisational creations. "Journey to the West" was his first attempt at an opera, as well as a more traditionally styled script. Lai says with a chuckle: "It was my answer to those who think the reason I always do collective creations is that I am unable to write a play by myself."
Chen Chien-tai, who composed the music, began his training on Chinese instruments as a child, and has been considered one of the leading scholars and performers of traditional Chinese music. He later studied Western music, focusing on violin, composition, and conducting, and became a major local figure in his field. With such an impressive background, Lai thought he would be the perfect man for the musical arrangement.
But when Chen read the final script, he immediately saw great difficulties because of the complex plot and lack of time before the premiere. Musical scores for operas usually take at least two years, and he had less than one year to complete the job. The task seemed nearly impossible. He was about to abandon the project, but much as a Buddhist kung-an (koan) poses an unanswerable question that leads to enlightenment when sufficiently pondered and negated, so Chen suddenly saw a simple cohesive solution for the music. He immediately set to work. Recalling the event, he says: "As long as I felt right about it, what musical notes couldn't be connected?" With barely suppressed excitement he began to write down the score for the opera.
Each of the styles of music Chen had heard before began to now from within him. Tripitaka sings Soochow Tantsu, the storyteller's form of ancient poetry; Monkey is given broken chords with a rustic flavor, conveying a feeling of the ancient city of Tunhuang on the Silk Route, that famous home of the Buddhist scriptures discovered by Aurel Stein at the beginning of the 20th Century; and the voice of Ah-tsang is accompanied by guitar, the modern music of a Taipei resident. The orchestra and singers use both traditional and non-traditional melodies. They are at times romantic and Western in style, and at other times archaic and classical in Chinese traditional forms.
"My study of music—be it Western or Chinese, theory or performance, technical or conceptual—has always been with the goal of discovering the true notes of the Chinese people," Chen says. "But recently I've begun to realize that all I can do is just let the notes in my heart now out. I can't seek anything outside of myself; I can only record the sounds that are within me. As long as these sounds are natural, meaningful, and original, I believe they will find a place in the hearts of all those who have an inclination to listen."
In the final months left for rehearsal after script, music, and staging were arranged, nearly everyone involved with the production was swamped with work. Nieh Kung-yen, the set and lighting designer, was also anxious in the extreme. For good reason. According to Lai's idea, a giant house, three stories high and of different designs, would stand at the back of the stage in five of the seven scenes. The troupers would actually perform on the second and the third floors. Nieh said, "Imagine: a three-story prop moving constantly on stage!" And other sets posed difficulties no less challenging.
To everyone's credit, the world premiere of "Journey to the West" was staged as scheduled on December 18, 1987, at the National Theater. Flaws were evident on opening night, despite the efforts of all the cast and musicians in the final days before the debut, but given the constraints of time and the incredible complexity of it all, the opening was judged satisfactory, though not perfect. The performance improved dramatically on the second day, and even more so the following day. The cast had its own journey toward perfection in full view of the audiences.
"Journey to the West" is by far the most complicated opera attempted to date by local theatre groups, both in staging and music. Understandably. Lai's effort drew mixed reviews. Some people praised the sophisticated story, while others blamed him for being overly ambitious in trying to say too much. One comment heard after a production was fairly common: "There are too many things going on at the same time on stage—I'm afraid I didn't catch even half of the show." Young members of the audience were enthusiastic about the play and enjoyed Lai's creations, but many also confessed that the opera was too complicated to be fully comprehended. One complained, "I think I missed many important details, and I hope to see the play several more times."
Music professionals were especially critical of Lai's so-called "new opera." They insisted that music should be the main force of an opera, and they complained that Lai's "Journey to the West" could have been done just as well without music. Hsu Chang-hui, a well-known local music composer, echoed this opinion: "An outstanding opera can and should convey some sort of philosophical idea, but no opera should just be 'relating' philosophy."
Even if it were taken only as a stage play, "Journey to the West" would be controversial. Just how much an audience should be burdened by a play's complexity is a debatable question, and some of the performing artists who saw Lai's creation agreed that even the second act alone could have been performed as a sufficiently complex independent play. In this act, various Chinese historical phenomena are represented on stage. The scene is set in the interior of an old Chinese house, which Nieh has designed as a faded picture. Photographs of ancestors (actually actors frozen in position) are hung on the wall; an opium smoker withers away on a bed; Tripitaka studies hard under the supervision of a traditionally severe tutor: and the Emperor plays chess with General Wei Chen. In the middle of the act, to the startled surprise of the actors and audience alike, a gigantic dragon head suddenly crashes to the stage, and foreigners—symbolizing the foreign challenge to things Chinese—step into the house through the giant door that has been torn through the back of the stage.
This is one of Lai's favorite scenes. He says in an excited voice:, "When I read the original novel, I was shocked by the force of a similar scene. The dragon is the symbol of China, and when the novel's characters are sleeping, dreaming, and playing chess, a bloody dragonhead falls from heaven! My original idea was to have the dragon head rolling down to the stage, but it was not feasible with the facilities of the National Theater."
"Journey to the West" earned wide acclaim as well as criticism. Both are healthy, for as Nieh says: "We know we are not perfect, but our experience itself is a contribution." More than that: it is an indication of the exciting new creative power that is pushing back the horizons of modern arts in Taiwan, setting new standards of complexity-and perhaps excellence—in Asia.