I had heard about director Rong's trilogy "Skater," "Tears of the Wilderness," and "Night Run" for a long time, and I had always been curious because the opinions I heard were mixed, mainly revolving around how he combines traditional opera with contemporary theater methods. I had personally seen some "modernized" opera performances, where the stage was lavish, and symphonic music was used, but it made me hesitant to watch more. Those productions seemed to focus only on the surface, thinking that simplicity and ethereality were weaknesses of opera, and that filling them up would attract the audience. This is a significant misconception. I had also seen modern plays that used operatic techniques, but the entire narrative remained at the level of storytelling without delving into why it was being told, how it was being told, and for whom it was being told.
At the end of May 2015, at the Hanover Theatre Festival in Germany, I had the privilege of seeing "Night Run." It was the latest version directed by Rong since its premiere in Norway in 2004. He expanded the solo performance of the martial artist from over twenty minutes into a complete half-hour performance. I believe that if we only evaluate this work from the perspective of "operatic experimentation," we would fall into a misconception because it still revolves around opera as the main theme. However, "Night Run" has already transcended the dichotomy of "traditional and modern," "China and the West." Director Rong has turned a classic sketch into a "rehearsed play" (Note 1). How should we interpret this? He allows us to feel in the theater how the performance is created in the rehearsal space, i.e., how the content and presentation of the play are "arranged" (Note 2). Usually, in traditional theater, including the ones I mentioned earlier, comprehensive methods are used, and those visually pleasing, emotionally moving, and atmosphere-enhancing routines, which appear to converge the stage, performance, music, or imagery into a symphony, are actually just "single notes." This is still limited to everyday viewing. However, Director Rong dissects these elements of comprehensive methods, separating images (including space and actors' performances) from text, images from sound, and then reorganizing images, text, and sound. He also presents the process of this arrangement, i.e., the narrative process, to us. Therefore, this play is about learning how to watch, listen, read, and speak. But it goes beyond that; it also talks about how to understand the things happening in the play.
As we entered the theater, what appeared before our eyes was a stage within a stage. A small stage was built on the theater's main stage, reminiscent of a laboratory or an isolated island. Although it was about "Night Run," the stage was brightly lit: white vinyl flooring, a white screen, and a white table. What was intriguing was a dark horizontal line on the white curtain, creating a visual division. The play started with the stage manager arranging the space. He was dressed cleanly, wearing a gray long gown, boots, and no makeup. He placed two chairs on stage and carefully examined the position of each chair. He looked from different angles, moved them, and kept moving them until he felt it was just right. Throughout the play, the four actors continued to arrange the space and props as if they were stage managers. They constantly pondered, experimented, overturned, and discovered, just like in a rehearsal. So, while watching the play, we would appreciate questions like: Why is this chair placed like this? What relationship is implied between the chairs? What connection is established between someone sitting and someone standing? What different meanings do actors facing the audience or turning away have? Why is the table placed at the edge of the stage? What kind of situation does the table create? Why is this long gown left on the chair, and so on?
Still, one table and two chairs, but the director wants us to reexamine what the elements of constructing the theater are, who the stage manager is, and what kind of place the theater is. He started with the most basic stage elements—arranging space, searching for the right position and angle for storytelling, and finding the starting point to lead the audience into watching.
Next, the stage manager moved slowly in silence, as if in a rehearsal or perhaps recalling what he had seen on the stage for years. Was his literary attire that of the playwright Li Kaixian? Was he reminiscing about his own experiences? Or was he contemplating the character Lin Chong? When he took off his long gown and boots, and Henri Pousseur's music began to play (this melody appeared with female vocals several times), he instantly transformed into Lin Chong, transitioning from a spectator of the play to a participant in it. Lin Chong's attire seemed like rehearsal clothing, simple and just right, dressed in a water blue jacket, black pants, and a red belt tied around his waist. At this moment, in the cold color palette of black, white, and gray, the red belt was the only burst of color, signifying the emotional ties between Lin Chong and his mother, wife, and hometown. The director fully portrayed this performance of the belt, showing us what it meant for an individual to be caught up in the ever-changing political struggles and what fate it held for him. Lin Chong repeatedly swung the belt tassel, gazed at it, held it in his hands, covered his eyes with it, lifted it onto his shoulders, and then let it fall, repeating these intense actions. Finally, he untied the red belt, and the red color paved a path or a river...
This Kunqu actor did not sing or speak, but visually, we already received ample information. What we saw and heard was richer than what was said. He didn't have time for farewells; he had to painfully let go of everything, wandering far from home. Farewells, escapes, and killings would be his fate.
The stage went dark, and white text appeared on the black background of an image. It explained where the play we were watching came from, its main content, performance time, and location. Importantly, it also briefly explained how we should watch this play. This image immediately brought us to the present moment, opening up our perspective for further viewing.
The lights came on again, an empty stage, with only the red belt left. Another middle-aged actor, also dressed in a long gown, brought a table onto the stage and arranged the table and chairs. Two other stage managers continuously adjusted the table and chairs, as well as other props, such as re-laying the red belt that had just been removed. We were witnessing the preparations for the next scene. Arranging space also meant arranging time. The young Lin Chong was no longer present, but his clothing remained. Transitioning through time and space, changing roles. We were watching how the play would continue, what it would say. As this Kunqu actor sat, stood, walked, entered, exited, and performed various actions, arranging and directing the basic movements of the actors, we watched, asking ourselves, who is he now? Playwright Li Kaixian? Actor Ke Jun? Character Lin Chong? A scholar? Where is this? The rehearsal room? The stage? Li Kaixian's study? Lin Chong's hiding place?
In this context, the director uses multiple threads to present the relationship between the two Kunqu artists from different times and their relationship with the other two performers. They sometimes wear long gowns, sometimes suits, representing two different eras of Lin Chong, but they can also symbolize the overlapping roles of playwright and character (isn't Lin Chong Li Kaixian's narrative of his own fate?). I've heard that the director continuously prompts the actors with questions, encouraging them to constantly experiment and create the characters through their movements. They transition from martial arts choreography, slowing down and magnifying their actions, deconstructing and reconstructing them, repeating the movements, and suspending their bodies in a critical state during the transitions between two actions. This way of arranging movements is intertwined with the characters' states, each move and gesture reflecting hesitation, struggle, and danger, one actor performing with fervor and sadness, while the other carries a solemn and desolate demeanor.
What I found particularly interesting was how the two actors also portrayed a real-life teacher-student relationship. The student observes and learns from the teacher's creative process, showcasing the inheritance of traditional Chinese opera. This also provides us, the audience, with a learning experience. Even for Western audiences without a background in traditional Chinese opera, they can still feel how a movement is developed, how it's integrated with the actor's or character's personality, and how one movement transitions to the next, expressing the character's emotional state, among other things. In this portrayal, the director incorporates scenes where the teacher is criticized and denounced by the student during a revolutionary movement, as well as their reunion and separation. The play allows us to see the relationship between the characters and our contemporary era, as well as the relationship between the actors and their characters. During the performance, I even anticipated a moment when the actors would completely step out of their roles and become real people, sharing who they are, where they come from, and their interesting experiences in staging this play, further expanding on the concept of "the play within rehearsals." Could this bring us deeper into the understanding of the relationship between the stage and reality, involving the audience in the actual rehearsal process?
So why did the Kunqu actors choose to omit their signature singing and recitation? Kunqu performances, known for their singing and dancing, are often praised by experts and enthusiasts alike. Isn't watching a play about witnessing these elements? No, Director Rong couldn't possibly be satisfied with just watching from a spectator's perspective. He demands a higher level of engagement in the theatrical viewing experience. Musician Qu Xiaosong once said: "More music narrows the space, as the space gets filled. Less music expands the space, as there is more room and capacity. Changing your listening state is how you change your perspective on the world, allowing you to truly see the world." The director dissects the comprehensiveness of the performance into three parts: imagery, music, and text. This way, the images we see become unfamiliar, and what we hear and read regains new meanings. Because only through this approach, in today's noisy age, can we truly watch, listen, and read. By removing the actors' singing and recitation, the director connects this method with the characters' experiences. When the actors' physical performances already convey everything, why use singing and recitation for exposition? Silence is also sound. In silence, tension in the body is heightened, and the energy of the movements is experienced. Grief and anger, they can't be put into words. The director's arrangement poses a great challenge to the actors; their acting must be impeccable, requiring full dedication to their performances to convey more with less, approaching what can be called an infinite feeling. On the other hand, through this method, the director is also challenging the audience. Exercising restraint in the performance is meant to awaken our listening and imagination, to relearn how to listen, to listen to silence. To relearn how to see, to see what is unseen. Grief and anger, left unspoken.
In this regard, the director reorganized sound and voice, incorporating operatic contralto, train sounds, drumbeats, mixed sound effects, and Kunqu chanting, aligning them in a non-aligned manner with the imagery. For example, when the actors perform traditional Chinese opera movements, the sound effects are Western opera or train sounds. When large snowflakes fall in the visuals and an actor sits silently on the stage, Kunqu chanting sound effects are heard. They establish a sense of estrangement from one another, placing the theme of "Night Run" in a broader time and space, transcending the boundaries between past and present, and East and West. This provides the actors with great freedom in their performances; their performance rhythm is no longer constrained by drumbeats and formal rules, allowing them to experiment with different means of expression and showcase their individuality. Without singing and recitation, the poetic lyrics are not omitted; the director reorganized and expanded them, projecting them directly onto the visuals for us to read in the theater. Reading them one word at a time. These texts include scripts from the playwright and texts written by the director based on the background of the play and the circumstances of the characters. The texts are presented through visuals in three different scenes, creating interlocking contextual relationships with the stage. The director suggests that in the theater, we read as well as watch and listen. Reading can be transformed into seeing and hearing directed towards the darkness.
Seeing, hearing, reading, and speaking are further deepened in the final part of the play, which I call "Whirlwind Transformation." It illustrates the director's theatrical approach and symbolism very effectively: The dawn is about to break, and large snowflakes gently fall against a black background in the visuals. They form lines of poetic verses composed of white pictorial characters, excerpts from the script of "Night Run." They, together with the snow, create a profound atmosphere:
Worries shroud the low-hung clouds,
The letter from the distant beloved never arrives.
Looking back at the western mountains,
A solitary traveler at the edge of the world.
Alone and adrift,
Rushing and fleeing in haste.
Like an untied falcon from its cage,
Escaping like a cunning hare from the net.
Hair gray and thinning,
Sparse luggage.
Whirling, turning, the heavens and earth reverse,
The sea boils, the mountains tremble.
In "Night Run," the singing effect of the "Dian Jiang Chun" aria faintly comes through, repeating the lyrics "Na da er xiang qiu jiu" (那搭儿相求救) over and over again. An actor dressed in a long robe, a scholar, sits in the "snowy landscape" for a long time. He, like us, watches another him on the stage in the midst of his escape. Looking back, the way back is severed, so he continues to move forward. Is that cursed destination ahead? The two performing artists release all the character's grievances, pain, and anger through physical performance at this moment, where all lives with fates like Lin Chong's converge - mournful cries, but silent. Then, the stage manager enters for the last time to arrange the space. Actor Ke Jun picks up a chair from the stage, steps out of the white floor mat, beyond the "desert island," with his back to the audience, takes step by step backward to the edge of the stage, sits down facing away from the audience. On stage, he is alone. The clear chanting of "Dian Jiang Chun" resounds live, and the actor remains completely still. He repeatedly sings and recites the phrase "Na da er xiang qiu jiu" (那搭儿相求救), echoing the previous sound effects, encapsulating everything that wants to be said but can only be expressed in this final sentence. I have watched countless performances of "Lin Chong's Night Run," but only this rendition of the song truly struck me. I am reminded of the poems written by Chinese poet Duo Duo in the 1990s when he was overseas:
No one said goodbye to me,
No one said goodbye to each other,
No one said goodbye to the dead, as the morning began.
It has no boundaries of its own...
Finally, the drummer enters. He had previously been on stage as the stage manager, tapping the table a few times with his hands twice and stopping, leaving a sense of suspense. Now, he finally strikes the drum directly on the table, creating a heart-pounding rhythm. Is the dawn breaking, marking the end of a revolution? Or has it just begun?
All the audience members find themselves in darkness, reading, watching, and listening together. We are experiencing how the play continues, how it goes beyond storytelling, and how it expresses the unspeakable: Could Lin Chong's fate be our fate? Is the stage manager's position our position? Is the scholar's predicament our predicament? Is the artist's responsibility our responsibility? Are the director's questions our questions? In the dark theater, we gradually transform what we read, see, and hear into a form of self-reading, viewing, and listening. What have we read, seen, and heard? The director leaves it all up to each one of us. When we leave the theater, how will we continue to speak? I wonder, if at the very end, instead of visual symbols like the moon, scenes from reality were projected, would it make us think even more deeply?
In today's theater, how do we engage with the present? How do we interpret classics? How do we confront traditional art? In a globalized context, what is theater? What does theater mean? Rong Nianzeng's direction in this work provides a convincing answer.
Note 1: Borrowing the concept from French philosopher Jacques Rancière, "Theatre in the film."
Note 2: Terminology used by Director Rong Nianzeng.
(This text was published in the book "Night Run" by Jiangsu Phoenix Science and Technology Publishing House.)