Snow in August

Snow in August

Gao Xingjian

Translated by Gilbert C. F. Fong

Copyright Information

Snow
in August

By Gao Xingjian

Translated by Gilbert C. F. Fong

© Gao Xingjian, 2000, 2001

English language translation © Gilbert C. F. Fong, 2003

First published in Chinese as
Bayue xue
by Lianjing Chubanshe, Taiwan, 2000

Revised edition published in
Gao Xingjian juzuo xuan
by Ming Pao Press, Hong Kong, 2001

First published in English by The Chinese University Press, Hong Kong, 2003

First English paperback edition, 2004

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be

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system, without permission in writing from the authors.

ISBN

962-996-101-6

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Photographs courtesy of National Taiwan Junior College of Performing

Arts 國立臺灣戲曲專科學校. Photographer: Ming-hsun Lee 李銘訓

Paintings courtesy of Gan Xingjian

Printed in Hong Kong

Title of Book: Snow in August

Author: Gao Xingjian

Translator: Gilbert C. F. Fong

Edition: V1.0

Date Last Updated: Day (10)　Month (05)　Year (2012)

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Introduction:

Marginality, Zen, and Omnipotent Theatre

I want to pass on to the Beijing opera actors the knowledge and experience gained from my work in experimental drama in the West…. My aim is to create a modern musical theatre based on the foundations of Eastern traditional drama, an omnipotent theatre of singing, dialogue, movement, and the martial arts.

—
Gao Xingjian
on Snow in August (Gao 2002: 6)

Snow in August
is based on the life of Huineng (633-713), the Sixth Patriarch of Zen Buddhism and founder of the Sudden Enlightenment School. According to Gao Xingjian, the sources for this “major drama about life” are Huineng’s autobiographical Platform Sutra 壇經
^[1-1]
and various
koan
cases (Gao 2002: 5). It is not surprising that Gao Xingjian has discovered a kindred spirit in Huineng, as there are elements in the Zen master’s life that strike a chord with our playwright. To put it more succinctly, Huineng, like Gao Xingjian, was always someone on the margins of society, often by choice. According to Huineng’s biographies (which are half legend and half history), he was an impoverished woodcutter from the southern part of China, the backwater of Chinese culture. (In the play, Huineng is first referred to as “the barbarian from the south.”) He never had any schooling, but despite being illiterate, he had an uncanny ability to understand difficult Buddhist sutras and elucidate Buddhist tenets in a straightforward manner. He was an outsider to the religious order—he did not belong to any temple, and he was not even an ordained monk when he became the Sixth Patriarch.Like our playwright, Huineng lived in exile many times during his life. When he was young, his father, who had been an official in the capital, lost his post and was banished to live in Canton in the south with his family. After Huineng was chosen as patriarch, he was forced to flee from the temple to live among hunters in the mountains to avoid persecution from jealous monks. He shied away from the seat of power, spurning the Emperor and the Empress Dowager’s royal summons to serve in the capital as “Teacher of Heaven and Men.” This was of course a grand gesture on his part, an attempt to underline his refusal to become a figurehead of state orthodoxy.

Some scholars have noticed that there is a latent anti-establishment stance in Zen Buddhist beliefs. Huineng’s famous
gatha
poem, which is quoted in the play, alludes to his non-conformist attitude:

The
bodhi
is not a tree,

Nor the mind a mirror bright;

Buddha nature is always pure,

Where can any dust alight?

While orthodox Buddhist masters typically insisted on cultivating virtues and doing good works to achieve enlightenment, Huineng, on the other hand, endorsed the idea of enlightenment through a direct understanding of one’s self-nature.
Bodhi
is wisdom and, according to Huineng, it cannot be grown or cultivated—he was to assert later that
Bodhi
comes as “sudden enlightenment,” thus the name of his school of Zen Buddhsim. The mind cannot be objectified as a mirror, as Buddha nature is self-nature—it resides within oneself, not in extraneous icons or deeds, which are but delusions. It is also pure and empty, such that even dust can find no place to settle, let alone soil it. In contrast, Shenxiu, the senior instructor and foil to Huineng in almost every aspect (in Huineng’s biography and in the play), still clings to objects in his metaphorizing
Bodhi
and the mind:

The body is a
Bodhi
tree,

The mind a mirror bright,

Always wipe it clean,

And let no dust alight.

Shenxiu is firmly rooted in the orthodoxy and its tenets. To him, good works and the cultivation of virtues (“Always wipe it clean”) will lead to the “way.” In contrast, Huineng’s “no-mind” approach moves beyond orthodoxy and abandons all attachments to enter into the realm of the void, thus achieving the highest pinnacle of enlightenment. This approach proves to be far superior, and he ultimately wins the succession to the patriarchate. His Platform Sutra is the only Buddhist sutra (
jing
經) written by a Chinese master (all others were written by Indian masters). Histori-cally, he was credited with revolutionizing Buddhism in China by giving it Chinese characteristics and effectively transforming it into a Chinese school of thought.

The episodes of Huineng’s life are highlighted in Snow in August, as if Gao Xingjian had found the “objective correlative” for his ideal personality, the perfect vehicle for his worldview and philosophy of life—indépendance totale and freedom. As Gao Xingjian echoes Huineng: “You could say that there is Chan [Zen] in every person, and everyone can become a bodhisattva.” (Chang 2002a: 15) The truth, then, is not attached to any one thing, and it depends on no one but the individual himself or herself; in other words, it is contingent upon the actualization of individualism in its ultimate form. The significance of Huineng, according to Gao, does not reside in his status as a revered religious leader, but in his inherent understanding of the truth about human existence and salvation, which represents a major breakthrough and “freeing up” of religion:

First, he [Huineng] broke through the obsession with material objects. He didn’t even want the traditional cassock and bowl but preferred to just try to achieve a spiritual connection or tacit understanding between master and acolyte…

　　Secondly, Huineng was unwilling to play the role of a messiah. He only guided people and inspired them to realize their own natures.…He has an even more modern image than Jesus Christ. Christ sacrificed himself to save others, but the thought of Huineng is even more modern—the point is not who will save who, but to go out and save yourself! (Chang 2002a: 13)

Liu Zaifu, a famous scholar and good friend of Gao Xingjian, once commented in a lecture that Gao’s work could be summarized in one word: self-salvation. In
Snow in August
, Gao tries to tackle the universal problem of freeing oneself from life’s sufferings, and Zen represents a supreme transcendence of worldly troubles and privations (Gao 2002: 5).

In Snow in August, Huineng is portrayed as a thinker, and that, Gao insists, is the only way he could be presented in drama—if drama were used to promote religion, it would become a meaningless endeavour (Chang 2002a: 14).GaoXingjian does not wish to promote Zen Buddhism—while he appreciates its scepticism towards language, he does not find it agreeable as a religious practice (Gao 1992a: 114). On many occa-sions, both public and private, Gao has saidthat he is not a believer and warned against regarding his plays as treatises on Zen Buddhism or any other philosophy (Gao 1992b: 136). However, there is no denying that a Zen ambience pervades many of his stories and plays—some critics even go as far as to insist that Gao is the creator of a kind of Zen theatre (Zhao 1999). Even Gao himself claims that with Snow in August, it is the first time in Chinese drama that Zen has been successfully integrated into a play, unlike many previous attempts which merely recount in a straightforward manner the stories of retribution and virtue rewarded (Chang 2002a: 13-14).

The ultimate goal of theatre is to express human nature.…This play should have a spiritual impact on people; it will be a jolt to the innermost mind, so it requires a powerful theatrical form. So long as you grasp the essence of Chan [Zen], you can move the audience. (Chang 2002a: 15)

What does Gao mean when he says that the play requires “a powerful theatrical form”? The 2002 production of
Snow in August
in Taipei, directed by Gao Xingjian himself, was an extravaganza. It featured fifty actors and actresses, a chorus of fifty, four percussionists, and a symphony orchestra made up of ninety musicians for a total of two hundred-odd performers. The impact came not only from the number but also from the onset of sights and sounds on the stage, a theatre of “singing, dialogue, movement and the martial arts.” The aim was to create a modern musical form based on Beijing opera, an all encompassing theatre which Gao called “omnipotent theatre” 全能的戲劇.

The Taipei production of
Snow in August
aspired to expand the possibilities of theatrical performance, in particular, Beijing opera. There had been many attempts to modernize the traditional art form, but they were all hampered by the preoccupation that the end product, no matter the experimentation, would still be Beijing opera. Gao Xingjian was different: he wanted total independence in order to free himself from all constraints. He started from zero and would be willing to accept any result as long as it was innovative—“it [
Snow in August
] includes everything, but is not any one thing,” (Chang 2002a: 11) i.e., it was not anything in the repertoire of existent theatrical forms.

In this “omnipotent theatre,” the actors also had to be “omnipotent actors” 全能的演員. They were required to sing, dance, and perform in different theatrical styles, and be accomplished in many performing arts techniques, both Chinese and Western. The performance was to be different from Beijing opera and stage plays, and the directing and acting had to be founded on a new understanding of contemporary theatre, i.e., what Gao Xingjian calls the “tripartite actor”—the actor, entering into a state of neutrality, should be able to separate himself from the character to display his art to the audience in a self-conscious and interesting manner (Gao 2002: 5; Fong 1999: xviii-xxi).

“Omnipotent theatre” developed out of the concept of “total theatre,” which Gao first advocated in 1984 with the experimental
Wild Man
(
Yeren
野人). The play was an attempt to return modern drama to the traditional concepts of Chinese opera—it includes not only dialogue but also the essentials of traditional theatre, such as singing, movement and gesture, and martial arts. The emphasis is on theatricality, which constantly reminds the audience that they are not experiencing reality but watching a performance, and that they should thoroughly enjoy themselves in an exciting atmosphere not unlike that of a festival celebration (Gao 1984: 161-62). This is reminiscent of Bakhtin’s idea of the carnival, but whereas Gao Xingjian’s theatre can be considered in many ways “subversive,” its main thrust is to recover drama’s original
raison d’ être
, to bring the theatre back to its very origin as a religious ritual, whereby people can enjoy spiritual and physical fulfilment, acquire happiness, or extricate themselves from suffering (Gao 1993: 191; Gao 1988a: 132). The idea of total theatre was carried over from
Wild Man to City of the Dead
(
Mingcheng
冥城) (1987) and
Story of the Classic of Mountains and Seas
(
Shanhaijing zhuan
山海經傳) (1989). These two plays, according to Gao Xingjian, sum up his pursuit of the idea of the theatre. They are not traditional Chinese opera, nor are they Western opera; they feature music and dance, but they are not musicals in the general sense (Gao 1993: 190). With
City of the Dead,