So intense was the dream that for a while, Chuang Chou actually supposed himself to be a butterfly. Then, of a sudden, he wore from the dream and found himself a very human Chuang Chou. The great scholar then began to wonder whether the, Chuan Chou, had actually dreamed of turning into a butterfly, or if a butterfly was now dreaming that it had turned into Chuang Chou.
This enigmatic riddle of identity, which so beguiled the Taoist philosopher 2,300 years ago, has continued to charm the Chinese people over the centuries. Entering Chuang Chou's mysterious world in their own imaginations through the Chinese ages, various interpreters have legendized his dream. Dream of the Butterfly, a major stage production and box office hit of the 7th New Aspect International Arts Festival, is the latest version of Chuang Chou’s intriguing experience.
In Chi Wu Lun (Essay on the Equality of All Things), within The Analects of Chuang Chou, the philosopher expounds, via his "dream of the butterfly," a specific Taoist concept: that the distinctions between some apparently different things might not be substantially meaningful.
In our "rational" world, a man is a man, and a butterfly a butterfly. But in the imagination, a man can be a butterfly, and a butterfly can be a man—Here the boundary between the self and the external world is broken. In a vaster perspective, the contrary values of gains and losses, honor and disgrace, right and wrong, and even life and death are, also, merely man’s preconceived ideas.
If a man could set himself free from all these notional discriminations and view all beings and matter in the universe with a equalizing eye, proclaims Chuang Chou, his mind would be able to soar between heaven and earth as freely as the butterfly.
From top—Hu Chin, as Madam Tien; Chai Yu-niang, as Madam Tien's covetous handmaiden.
With this same broad vision, the Taoist philosopher, as set forth in his Chih Le Pien (Chapter of the Utmost Happiness), went so far as to "sing to the accompaniment of a beat on an earthen jar" as Madame Tien, his aged wife, passed away: "She was originally not only lifeless, but formless, not only formless, but breathless. Then she was given breath, form, and life. And now, again, she is lifeless. All this is as natural as the yearly cycling of the seasons—spring, summer, autumn, and winter. I show a poor understanding of fate if I cry now for her predestined death," explained Chuang Chou to an astonished friend, who had come to console him on the death of his wife.
Drawing tremendously farfetched analogies from the two capsule allegories, ancient Chinese writers of popular literature created a misty myth about Chuang Chou and his wife:
At the request or Chuang Chou, Li Erh (founder of Taoism and Chuang's teacher) read Chuang's description of the dream of the butterfly:
In a previous life, Chuang Chou wrote, he was a white butterfly. And while trying to gather the nectar of the peach of immortality in heaven, he was killed by a guarding blue phoenix and then reincarnated in human form. Soon disillusioned with the mortal world, he retired to Nanhua Mountain to practise Taoism.
There, after ten years' cultivation, Chuang Chou attained perfection in Taoism. On his way back to his human home, he encountered a young widow fanning a new grave with obvious effort. Out of curiosity, Chuang Chou approached the widow to ask why she was fanning the grave. The bereaved lady replied that her beloved husband, now in his grave, had instructed her on his sickbed that after he died, she might remarry as soon as the soil on his grave had dried. But the soil was drying so slowly, that she had to fan it in order to fulfill her husband's wish as soon as possible.
Pondering over the transiency of affection in the mortal world, which he saw as a natural phenomenon, Chuang Chou used his supernatural powers to help the widow dry the grave. As a token of gratitude, the widow gave Chuang her fan as a gift.
Returning home, Chuang Chou narrated the story to Madame Tien in a satirical vein, and did not hesitate to compare his wife to the frail widow. Madame Tien, in a rage, tore the widow's fan to pieces and swore that she, as a cultivated lady of noble birth, would preserve her honor and never remarry if she happened to survive Chuang Chou.
The "wooden slaves" dance in a musical scene from Act II.
Unfortunately, Chuang Chou was soon the victim of a terrible illness, and in no time, Madame Tien was a widow. The lady was initially so grieved that she cried ceaselessly and refused to receive any visitors. But just a week later, with the coffin still in the house, a handsome young man called, and introduced himself as the philosopher's pupil and a nobleman of the state of Chu. He proceeded to so touch the lonely heart of the grieving Madame Tien, that she was finally impelled to repudiate her pledge.
But at the moment of consummation of the new pair's romantic affair, the young man was suddenly afflicted with an acute heart attack. He informed her it would be fatal unless he obtained a specific remedy—a human brain.
To save her new lover, Madame Tien decided to sacrifice the body of her late husband. And lifting a trembling axe, she split open his coffin. To her great shock, Chuang Chou suddenly arose, laughing loudly. He made clear that Chuang Chou had not died, merely metamorphosed himself into the young lover to test his wife's resolve.
Rich with possibilities for mysterious color and dramatic tension, the brief story of Chuang Chou's test for his wife has been a very favored source for popular novels and dramas, especially during the Ming (1368-1644) and Ching (1644-1911) Dynasties. Two early, most famous versions are included in the Ming Dynasty satirical novels Ching Shih Tung Yen (authored by Feng Meng-lung) and Chin Ku Chi Kuan (by the anonymous "Old Man of the Urn"). Popular dramatic presentations adapted from them, and entitled either The Great Splitting of the Coffin or The Dream of the Butterfly, were often staged as Kunchu Opera (originating in Kunshan, Kiangsu Province, during the Ming Dynasty), as well as Peking Opera, and local Chinese opera forms.
From top—Miao Tien makes-up as the evil sorcerer; Miao and Director King Hu discuss the action.
Various versions of this Chuang Chou story differ mostly in the endings, in accordance with their writers' personal preferences. Some end with the suicide of the shamed Madame Tien—reflecting a viewpoint of sharp male chauvinism. Others choose a Taoist point of view, concluding with Chuang Chou and his wife both ascending to heaven as immortals after Madame Tien finally recognizes that love and lust in the world are mere vanity.
Dream of the Butterfly, as jointly produced by the New Aspect Promotion Corporation and Environmental Music Productions, is from an original version written by Hsi Sung. Adapted and directed by King Hu, it projects a broader, more humane vision of Chuang Chou's relations with his wife:
Instead of maliciously intending to test the honor of his wife, Chuang Chou tries, via the feigning of death and a subsequent metamorphosis, to lay bare before Madame Tien's eyes the illusory substance of human emotion and the consequent absurdity of romantic obsession. His philosophy, however, is obviously too transcendental for his wife who, as other humans, longs for love. Madame Tien is pardonable, in this version, for rejecting a dead husband who has lacked romantic feeling in life, and opting for a live lover. Her almost tragic inner struggle, pitting traditional ethics against burning desire, is meant to be understood...and to stir compassion.
"Chuang Chou could deliver his doctrine to the world but, ironically, could not ferry his wife to shore," commented co-producer Pai Hsien-yung (who shared production tasks with Fan Man-nung of Environmental Music Productions).
"Being married to a 'superman' must always be awful for a woman. Why should Madame Tien be excluded?"
To examine Madame Tien's ancient betrayal of Chuang Chou from a modern female-liberation point of view, modern playwright Hsi Sung presents testimony from four female "witnesses," whose differing ages, social status, and love experiences symbolize the seasonal cycles of a woman's life: Madame Tien's youthful handmaiden is spring, when the bud of love begins to form. The open, zealous, grave-fanning widow represents the bloom of summer. The matured, constrained Madame Tien is autumn, when fruits are ripe, but the plants are soon to wither. The elderly proprietress of the coffin shop represents winter—her youth and love are already gone.
Additionally, a paper female figurine before Chuang Chou's mourning hall—merely the appearance of a woman—has neither body nor soul to attract love, and adds irony.
Avoiding strong moralizing messages, Hsi Sung pursues a light, comic form in Dream, with which director King Hu obviously and completely agrees. In fact, when the play is staged, it is stronger than comedy, almost farce, with notable satirical flavor.
To make the production more lightly amusing and lively, King Hu's version avoids particular emphasis on feminist viewpoints, though his presentation does center on the two leading female roles, Madame Tien and widow Hua Niang (Lady Flower). In their searches for self-fulfillment, they encounter various points of view from male sources of power surrounding them: a magistrate representing Confucianism; Chuang Chou as Taoism; and a village sorcerer for legalism (law and punishment).
Since Taoism is the play's central context, the non-Taoist principals are intentionally garbled, to serve as negative foils: the magistrate is a pedant who says yes and means no; and the sorcerer is an ambitious careerist who attempts to control people by ridding them of free thought.
King Hu is a veteran film director with over thirty years in show business. His 1975 Cannes film festival award winning film, A Touch of Zen, is characteristic of the compact plots and sprightly rhythm of Dream—his maiden stage play.
In the final scene, Chuang Chou (with fan) frees the wooden slaves.
The opening act of Dream of the Butterfly presents a farcically merry spring vista. To a delightful melody, a joyful widow, Hua Niang, hand in hand with her new lover, visits her late husband's tomb. "Both the dead and the living should be taken care of," she holds.
They encounter an elderly magistrate, who is investigating the mysterious disappearance of Chuang Chou and his wife and the smashing of Chuang's coffin. The talkative Hua Niang tells the magistrate how Chuang Chou used supernatural powers to help her dry the tomb, and notes another probable aspect of the mystery: Many vagrants have recently been missing in the village, and someone has reported seeing them captured by a green-eyed, red-haired monster. As they are conversing in excited tones, the monster appears and carries away Hua Niang's new lover. The atmosphere is now filled with unease.
In the second act, the monster reveals himself to be the son of the evil village sorcerer, who transforms all his captives into wooden slaves who will "work obediently all day long without eating and thinking." Ambitious to rule the world with his magic power, the sorcerer is worried only about the possibility that Chuang Chou is still living, since the powerful philosopher strongly opposes violators of the rules of nature.
But the "monster" son takes no real interest in his father's "great undertaking." He is planning to run away with his sweetheart, Chih Chiao, Madame Tien's beautiful handmaiden.
The third act shifts backwards to the home of Chuang Chou. Now informed by the sorcerer's son of Chuang Chou's homecoming, the grieving Madame Tien suddenly turns jubilant. She tidies the room, dresses herself up, and prepares her husband's favorite foods and wine.
But the returned husband completely ignores her dress, appearance, and food, and shows concern only for his bamboo slips (the books of ancient China). Thus the play motivates Madame Tien's later betrayal.
The wide gap between Chuang Chou and Madame Tien is further developed when Madame Tien supposes Chuang Chou to be "out of his mind" as he relates to her his dream of the butterfly. She even sends for the sorcerer to cure her husband of his "delusions."
A very creative moment in this act occurs as Chuang Chou reveals to the wife the truth of his "game" of feigned death. The irate Madame Tien is so outraged that she tries to use the axe with which she has only recently split the coffin, on the living man—a rescue of the initial action from the subconscious.
In the final act—The Trial of Erewhon—each character exposes personal greed: Chih Chiao, the handmaiden, asks the magistrate to name her inheritor of her employers' property, promising, in exchange, half the amount. The sorcerer intrigues with the magistrate about a rebellion. And the widow Hua Niang threatens a lawsuit against the sorcerer and the magistrate.
Then when the ambitious sorcerer conjures up his wooden slaves to assert control, the whole stage falls into chaos. Amidst a magnificent dance by Chuang Chou and the slaves, the production is finally brought to climax—the philosopher lifts the spell on the mindless wooden beings and restores their humanity.
Grandiose lighting and background music now embrace a spacious sphere full of natural vitality. A giant butterfly emerges from its cocoon and flies off, symbolizing that true leisure and ease the Taoists predict after one shakes off the burden of all affection and desire.
Aside from its active, exciting plot, Dream offers special audio-visual enjoyment.
Nieh Kuang-yen's stage designs underwrite a magnificent spectacle. An extensive stage area towards the spectators' deck reduces the distance between the dramatic world and that of the audience, and multiple decks divide the stage into several time warps: At the forefront is a level for the "carefree spirit," a narrator completely transcending time or space; a second level is for ongoing events; a third is for flashbacks; and the fourth, atop an altar, is for things beyond the reach of human powers.
Wang Tung, a 1985 Golden Horse Award winner, presents a glamorous "fashion show" of costumes, which not only reflect the play's historic time but deliver half-hidden messages about the personality of each character.
Chuang Chou, in the style of a bronze relief from the Warring States Period, is clad in a loose, soft blue-grey gown bearing three white embroidered cranes—transcendental elegance for a free-spirited philosopher. His wife, in sharp contrast, is opulently attired in rich dark colors and gold. Added to the white mourning dress of the widow, borrowed from a sculpted jade dancer excavated in Loyang, Honan Province, is a purposeful pink lining.
Composer Ng Tai-kong, in Dream, does not at all betray his due recognition as a (previous) Golden Horse awardee for his movie score for King Hu's The Legend of the Mountain. In addition to its pleasing, Chinese-toned melodies, the play's score offers fluent foils for the characters' changing inner feelings.
King Hu laid down strict requirements for historical authenticity in Dream, concernedly re-creating the time and space of China's Warring States era, down to the smallest detail. For instance, the four traditional Chinese scholarly treasures—writing brush, inkstone, inkstick, and writing paper, so casual a setting in most of our historical drama—were not yet in existence at that time, and are not seen on the philosopher's desk. And his "books" are those of his time—linked bamboo slips. Cotton did not come into popular use until the Ming Dynasty, so costumes are mostly sackcloth or silk brocade. Also, there were no chairs then according to historical research, so the characters sit on cushions or the "ground." To enable audiences to clearly see scenes involving seated characters, Nieh specifically designed an inclined stage.
Audiences especially noted and appreciated the creative, mime-like "zombie dances" created by Cloud Gate dancer-choreographer Lin Hsiu-wei; the attractive Peking-Opera-style posturing evoked by Sun Shu-pei; actress Hu Chin's sharp "double performance" as the saucy young widow and the constrained wife of Chuang Chou; actor Chang Fu-chien's "insipid" incarnation of a philosopher who has purged his mind of desire and ambition; the grotesque self-introduction and dialogues of Chen Hui-lou (as the muddleheaded magistrate) and of Wei Su (as the magistrate's greedy assistant)—these, among many outstanding performances. Capacity audiences appeared for all of the six-evening stagings at Taipei's Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall.
Among its special offerings, Dream drew together essences of almost all possible vocal and strictly musical elements from traditional Chinese theatric forms. Represented were Kunchu Opera, The Huangmei Tune (a popular folk melody originating in Huangmei County, Hupeh Province), other Chinese local opera styles, and story-telling musical forms from Ta Ku (singing with the accompaniment of drumbeats) and Shu Lai Pao (a chant-like monologue punctuated by Chinese percussion instruments)—All these lively and exciting hors d'oeuvres are from the eternal Chinese stage, and all drew audience memories back into the distant past....
If there is anything to complain of, it is probably due to an excess of zeal—aspects of the production sometimes distracted audience attention by trying to say too much at one time. "One thing I have learned from this first stage experience is the importance of simplicity," concedes director King Hu.
In any case, without question, Dream's successful joining of the traditional Chinese theatric arts with the modern stage is another substantial step toward rich new horizons for this country's theatric artists.