Lin Zhaohua is famous for his dramas, and, while not everyone loves them, there is no denying that he is one of the most significant figures in Chinese drama history. Just don't tell him that.
"I am realistic basically," Lin said in a recent interview, "but I was not content with the stereotyped drama situations in China, because dramas have a rich content and I want others to see more patterns."
I came to know Lin through Three Sisters Waiting for Godot, a modern drama brought to the stage by the Chinese People's Art Theater. As a famous director, Lin has produced many traditional Chinese dramas. But this time he adapted Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, possibly the most mysterious drama in the world, and presented it before a Chinese audience. After watching the play, I felt like Lin was a strange old man, and agreed that he was avant-garde, an experimentalist, and a very different kind of director.
I have had much contact with Lin and have had many chances to watch his dramas. In my eyes, Lin is an interesting, lovely and creative man. During the two years that I specialized in theater reporting, Lin never stopped his work on modern dramas, Peking Opera, vocal concerts, or even evening acrobatic shows, and the tickets always sold well.
Beginning his career as an actor, Lin later began to direct dramas. Because of his experiences, he has a better and more thorough understanding of dramas. If he had stuck to his acting profession, he would not have become a celebrated master director today.
Lin, a low-key man, defined our interview as a chat. So we started our conversation in a casual way.
As the very first man to initiate the small-theater modern drama in China, and as a bellwether in the trade, Lin has been identified as avant-garde and experimental, so I asked him to define his style himself.
"Well, I have no style, no, not at all," he answered without any hesitation, "The style-forming process is vivid, but once it is formed, it turns stiff. So I have no style. Every drama has its own unique style. I think a director does not work for his or her own style, but for the drama itself. He or she will just represent what he or she has felt. I believe in and respect my own feelings, and at the same time, I hope I will have new experiences. That is my production logic.”
"Any concepts, theories or formulas set for the modern dramas don't work on me when I am producing," he continued. "I only believe in my own understanding and feeling, so my favorite things will inevitably appear here and there, now and then, and there is always an inner connection in the dramas."
As for labels, Lin explained: "I am not avant-garde. I have always abided by the law of the Golden Mean. Dramas are rich, and I want people to see more patterns. The avant-garde presents a new kind of drama, parting with the traditional ones. I haven't been in the status of breaking from traditional dramas from the very beginning. I don't have the courage or thought."
If not avant-garde, then why does he have the label, I asked, and why do so many
people say that they don't understand his dramas?
Lin smiled and said helplessly, "My dramas are neither profound nor difficult to understand. I simply find some thoughts about man in the play that stimulate me, and discover the theme about man when I read it again. I don't mean to pay a tribute to something; much of it is my personal feeling. The producing of Three Sisters Waiting for Godot, for instance, is because I found that there are numerous expectations and a lot of waiting during a lifetime. Love is always considered a forever subject, but I don't think so. It is not love but waiting, an immortal theme, waiting for chances for professional success, waiting for love and waiting for materials. For me, I am waiting for money to produce dramas. I respect my own feelings, and I will show them in the dramas, and that has nothing to do with any politics or 'isms.'" He added, "The means I have so far applied in different dramas help me convey my feelings. So I believe the audience will understand." But he also conceded that, "This is an age when the audience prefers TV plays and mini comic plays to dramas; we should not ask them to understand." This may explain, I thought, why his dramas are not easy to understand, and why he has the avant-garde label.
Lin surprised me in the interview by talking about the importance in drama of the market.
"The market is of course very important," he said, "but if you yield to it, dramas must perish. The real dramas or art are always in conflict with the market. But the market-oriented art forms are unnecessarily not worth watching.
"Some of my dramas gave in to the market. Nearly all I produced for theaters have made money. For instance, the Tea House and The Frameless Wind and Moon," he explained. "But the dramas produced in my own studio have all lost money, without exception, because those that I have done for myself are a little bolder. Generally, people prefer conventional things that they have already become accustomed to."
Lin said that he didn't want to produce that kind of thing. He thought he should let his audience know there was an even broader world out there. This helps explain why Lin has been able to produce a series of different-styled dramas, like the Tea House, The Frameless Wind and Moon, Three Sisters Waiting for Godot, and Newly Adapted Stories.
Lin called his productions "picture-book dramas" easy to understand.
"I like to represent masterpieces, for they are valuable legacies, and enable artists to fully develop," he said. "So I made Hamlet, Faust, Three Sisters Waiting for Godot and Richard III. I feel that my works are semi-finished products. I have just faithfully presented these masterpieces before my audience in the way the picture-books do. It makes people understand easily and it is beneficial to young drama fans.
"One question that often haunts me is, what on Earth is a drama? Is it only a recital of lines on stage?"
He repeated the questions to himself, "The means in dramas I used all of the work for my thoughts. I think I have inherited the tradition of the People's Art Theater. If we don't respect tradition, we can by no means talk about production and development. Only by building new traditions on the basis of old traditions can the tradition be handed down."
I never expected Lin (who seems a little cynical to me) to say, "We are not active in thinking when producing dramas. The prosperity of dramas depends on people who work for it, so no one else is to be blamed for the present slackness.
"To change the situation, I think, better first to liberate artists' minds, and let them show their independent artistic characters freely. Only by doing so can the dramas be liberated. More often than not, independent artistic individuality is misunderstood, but artistic generality is warmly hailed and praised.
"I think now we have conditions to do so, but some will not. To some artists, they will argue for freedom when none exists, but when it is available, they just don't know how to use and treasure it." Lin sighed with regret.
As to the melting of the East and West, he said, "I think that East is East, and West is West, that cannot be changed. But, he said, their meeting "is important to the future development of Chinese dramas."
Lin Zhaohua
Born in Tianjin in 1936, Lin started his career in 1951, and was transferred to the Bayi Film Studio in 1956.
Lin was admitted to the Acting Department of the Central Academy of Drama in 1957, and was allocated work at the Beijing People's Art Theater as an actor in 1961. He became a director in 1978. He was the deputy dean of the Beijing People's Art Theater in 1984, and the director of the art committee of the Beijing People's Art Theater in 1993.
Lin Zhaohua's Major Works
Modern dramas: Weddings and Funerals, Nirvana of Gouerye, Bird People, Ruan Lingyu, Antiques, Tea House, Frameless Wind and Moon, Beijingers, Hamlet, The Orphan of the Zhao Family, Faust, Chess People, Three Sisters Waiting for Godot, Richard III.
Peking Opera: Turandot, The Humpbacked Prime Minister Liu.
(China Pictorial December 17, 2004)
