Introduction
This page entails my creative project and the research that informed it. The play is allegorical to the experience of avant-garde/experimental playwrights in post-Mao China from 1976-1989, particularly the experience of Gao Xingjian. My research provides historical context for the play.
Historical Background
During the Cultural Revolution, Chinese literature experienced strict censorship from the Communist government. In 1942, at the Yan’an Forum on Art and Literature, Mao Zedong set forth the standards for literature in the People’s Republic of China (PRC); it was to be a source of enlightenment for the masses and could not be separated from politics (McDougall 194-5). In Marxist theory, human societies are divided into a base, which is comprised of relations of production, and a superstructure, which includes such aspects as culture and is determined by the nature of the base (Base and Superstructure)(Base/Superstructure). Mao held the conviction that literature should romanticize the proletariat and be a political tool for the Communist party; he mandated that art, which is part of the superstructure, should awaken the proletariat, which is part of the base (Larson 39-40). To achieve this goal he set forth the standard of socialist realism in literature. Socialist realism denotes an optimistic representation of current social forces successfully carrying out party policy. This philosophy maintains the ability of literary works to express progressive social evolution, requiring realistic depictions of socialist societies (Larson 40). In other words, literature conforming to the tenets of socialist realism would fictionalize a socialist society, creating fictional events that depict how socialism facilitates social progress.
As part of the socialist values that would facilitate progress, the philosophy of collectivism was advocated by The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) (Zhang 97). Mao and the CCP stressed that it was integral for the salvation of the masses, in contrast to individualism, which was seen as Western, opportunistic, and a distraction from the concerns of the proletariat (Larson 42). Collectivism would instruct individuals to think past themselves for the higher purpose of society at large. Mao instructed writers to overcome their reservations over manual labor and individualism, the former being prevalent in work camps, and the latter being a subversive force that Mao wanted to eliminate in communist China (McDougall 194).
Plays adhering to these standards were to be written by professionals, and the results were the Revolutionary Peking Operas, which depicted proletariat conflicts and heroes motivated above all else by their strong dedication to the Party, never straying from their conviction to protect the proletariat masses (Fan 364-5). These revolutionary plays displayed a romanticism of the Cultural Revolution, advocating that it would be beneficial to Chinese society (Fan 364-5). However, some artists felt that the revolution and the strict censorship of the party were oppressive and malignant.
Gao Xingjian (b. 1940) had been banished to work in the countryside during the Cultural Revolution (Gao xi). However, by this time in his life he had already developed an earnest proclivity towards writing and art, both of which he felt were outlets for discovering the meaning of life and realizing one’s own self (Gao xi). His individualistic persuasions were antithetical to the official dogma of collectivism, so he had to hide his writings which he felt helped him make sense of the violence that surrounded him (Gao xi). Under constant surveillance from censors, he would go so far as to bury his works and even burn them to avoid persecution (Gao xi). It would not be until after the Cultural Revolution that he would be able to explore his artistic interests.
Mao Zedong died on 9 September 1976, and with his death came sweeping changes in the CCP. On 6 October 1976, his wife, Jiang Qing, and three other of her colleagues, high officials from the previous regime, were arrested and charged with crimes against the state. They were accused of having promoted and guided the Cultural Revolution, which by that time had been recognized as a mistake and detrimental to Chinese society (McDougall 332). This new period immediately following the ascension of Deng Xiaoping witnessed unprecedented freedom of expression in the PRC, as well as many new economic modernizations (McDougall 332). In the immediate wake of Xiaoping’s ascendancy, literature was allowed to explore and condemn the malicious aspects of socialism and horrors from the Cultural Revolution, as well as previously forbidden topics such as love and sex (McDougall 332-333). In 1979, Xiaoping himself issued a speech promising an end to intervention in artistic creation, urging artists to consume and learn from western writers and foreign literature (McDougall 334). This move was a part of the open-door policy that Xiaoping implemented to legitimize his regime and repudiate the mistakes of the Cultural Revolution, for which he blamed the “gang of four,” comprised of Qing and her three colleagues (McDougall 335). As part of this policy, Xiaoping allowed for Western capitalist ventures to set up businesses in specifically designated areas, bringing in a wave of economic prosperity (McDougall 335). Along with these new modernizations came new forms of art.
Avant-garde/experimental theatre began to flourish as a part of the new literary phase of modernism in the post-Mao era. Journals hosted discussions on the concept of a type of theatre that focused on artistic form, not just content (Labędzka 17). Some artists felt a need to cross the boundaries of socialist realism (Labędzka 17). The repudiation of the dogma of socialist realism was accompanied by playwrights’ abilities to investigate the multi-layered structure of man’s internal and external worlds (Labędzka 18). Avant-garde/experimental theatre does not focus on developing a linear, consistent plot that entails a logical sequence of cause and effect, but it incorporates features such as an episodic structure, a lack of logic, stream of consciousness, and the muddling of the boundary between reality and dream (Labędzka 32). However, this new form was soon met with consternation from authorities.
While artists were motivated to criticize the status quo of literature in the PRC, they still experienced backlash from authorities. In 198,1 Xingjian published a book of theory called Xiandai xiaoshuo jiqiao (Preliminary Explorations into the Techniques of Modern Fiction) (Gao xi-xii). It criticized artists under the influence of Maoist “revolutionary realism,” which was a synonym for socialist realism, but was condemned by authorities as a challenge to the party line, eliciting a countrywide controversy over the threats of modernism, which was being seen as a bad influence on young writers with subversive potential (Gao xi-xii). While nominally promising freedom of expression, official discourse on literature in the Post-Mao era followed the philosophy that Mao Zedong espoused in the Yan’an Forum. Hence, while avant-garde/experimental literature was beginning to proliferate in the context of an (at least nominally) open and uncensored artistic community, realism was still the primary and implicitly state-sanctioned mode of expression in the literature of the PRC (Zhang 102). There was an unclear distinction between Xiaoping’s rhetoric and the reality of freedom of expression in the post-Mao era.
In 1983, conservative factions of the CCP launched the Anti-Spiritual Pollution campaign in response to fears of malignant effects on Chinese society stemming from the influx of Western ideas (Larson 41). One of the main targets of the campaign was the increase in modernist literature, which challenged the conservative philosophy of socialist realism. The relationship of Chinese literature to economic and cultural trends of the West was a key point in the campaign. The campaign dealt with three main problems: firstly, what kind of writing is beneficial to a developing socialist (as opposed to capitalist) society; secondly, the problem of creating art that is popular and digestible by the masses, focusing on “immersion into life;” thirdly, the problem of an artist’s moral effect on society (Larson 41-42).
On July 19, 1983, Deng Xiaoping published an article titled, “A Correct Program for Socialist Literature of a New Era, and subtitled, “Study the Important Thinking of The Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping on Literary Issues” (Larson 43). The title of this article suggests a prescriptive approach to literature by Xiaoping. He wrote, “We must continue to maintain the direction pointed out by Comrade Mao Zedong of literature serving the greatest number of people, and first and foremost the workers, peasants and soldiers” (Larson 43-44). Deng was controverting his earlier statements about freedom of expression and his implorements to writers to learn from Western writers. He used the term literary laws when defining the CCP’s role in leading literary works as “based on the special characteristics and laws of development of literary art, to assist literary workers to obtain conditions to continue to enrich literary enterprises, raise the standards of literature, and create superior results in literature and the performing arts that will not put out great people and great era to shame” (Larson 44). This rhetoric was irreconcilable with the promise he had made to not interfere with artistic creation. He went on to urge writers to “work hard to create a new socialist human image,” and warned readers of “capitalist liberalism, extreme individualism, self-seeking anarchism, and the phenomenon of economic and cultural crimes that pay no credence to professional morality, personal or national moral integrity” (Larson 44). So, Xiaoping ironically blamed his own open-door policy for bringing Western values of individualism into the PRC but shielded himself from taking personal responsibility by blaming artists for promulgating these negative values.
In this campaign, the problems of modernism were compared to the propriety of socialist realism. Some conservatives claimed that modernism was elitist because it was not easily understood by the masses, thus it represented bourgeois values (Larson 45-46). In contrast, realism would be accessible, so its messages of social evolution would be salient (Larson 46). Another conservative argued that modernism, with its abstractness, inherently replaced Marxism with Western philosophies such as existentialism, and thus would diminish the importance of an author’s recognition of real life (Larson 47). The inclination of modernist writers to ignore political issues in order to look inward would reduce their scope of society and allow for individualism to proliferate (Larson 47). modernism, because art was seen as inextricable from an inherent philosophical subtext, in comparison to realism, was accused of ignoring real life and lacking social value (Larson 38).
At this time modernist artists were just beginning to break-through into recognition but were faced with censorship. Gao Xingjian’s absurdist play, The Bus Stop, was prevented from continuing its run by official censors after only 13 shows during the Anti-Spiritual Pollution campaign (Gao xiii). Gao himself was banned from publication for one year and, sensing impending persecution, fled to the countryside (Gao xiii). Other artists felt softer censorships, having their works pulled from production and being forced to self-criticize, which entailed them explaining the faults in their own works (McDougall 336). However, the campaign ended quickly, with Xiaoping himself denouncing it. Gao returned to Beijing in 1984 and was allowed to publish again (Gao xiii). However, the CCP would soon again flip-flop on its stance on literature.
In 1987, the CCP launched their campaign against bourgeois liberalism. Among the targets of this campaign were modernist writers. The CCP felt that writers had misused their freedom by criticizing the party and ignoring proletariat issues (McDougall 340). The party placed prohibitions on Gao Xingjian’s works (McDouggal 365). The end of the 1980s saw an end to the widespread experimentation in theatre, with the increase in censorship, as theatre is a visual art and could not proliferate in underground publications (Chen 103). Censors re-read plays that had been approved after they received mass popularity, fearing the existence of subversive sub-texts (Chen 104). Playwrights were able to criticize problems in the PRC so long as they stuck to the tenets of socialist realism, that is, as long as they were not abstract and adhered to the party line (Chen 112-113).
All in all, the end of the 1970s through the 1980s saw undulations in the freedom of expression and avant-garde/experimental theatre in the PRC. Unfortunately, censorship became too strict to grapple with.
A Play In Which Nothing Happens, Repeatedly
Works Cited
Text
“Base/Superstructure – Oxford Reference.” Base/Superstructure – Oxford Reference, 2 July 2018, www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199207800.001.0001/acref-9780199207800-e-104.
“Base and Superstructure – Oxford Reference.” Base and Superstructure – Oxford Reference, 5 Nov. 2018, www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780198735304.001.0001/acref-9780198735304-e-346.
Chen, Xiao-Mei. “Audience, Applause, and Countertheater: Border Crossing in ‘Social Problem’ Plays in Post-Mao China.” New Literary History, vol. 29, no. 1, 1998, pp. 101–120.
Fan, Xing. “The ‘Broken’ and the ‘Breakthroughs’: Acting in Jingju Model Plays of China’s Cultural Revolution.” Asian Theatre Journal, vol. 30, no. 2, 2013, pp. 360–389.
Gao, Xingjian. The Other Shore: Plays. Translated by Gilbert C. Fong. The Chinese University Press, 2000.
Labędzka, Izabella. Gao Xingjian’s Idea of Theatre: from the Word to the Image. Brill, 2008.
Larson, Wendy. “Realism, Modernism, and the Anti-‘Spiritual Pollution’ Campaign in China.” Modern China, vol. 15, no. 1, Jan. 1989, pp. 37–71.
McDougall, Bonnie S., and Kam Louie. The Literature of China in the Twentieth Century. Columbia University Press, 1997.
Zhang, Xudong. Chinese Modernism in the Era of Reforms: Cultural Fever, Avant-Garde Fiction, and the New Chinese Cinema. Duke University Press, 1997.
Image
Haydon, William. Cover of A Play in Which Nothing Happens, Repeatedly. 20 April 2019. Flickr, https://flic.kr/p/2fB2tWK. Accessed 20 April 2019.
Videos
“Bus Stop 2001 (Gao Xingjian, Claire Conceison).” Youtube, uploaded by Claire Conceison, 22 October 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvZ0B8lb070&t=1915s.
“The Other Shore.” Youtube, uploaded by JeffDirects, 21 January 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QV6RgjGscCA&t=10s.
