The puppet master

Lin Zhaohua (right) chats with Pu Cunxin (left) and Tao Hong while rehearsing the play The Master Builder.

Defiance against conventions

Ever since the founding of New China in 1949, Chinese theater had been following the teachings of Constantin Stanislavski and the practice of socialist realism. Theatrical artists strove to present as realistic a world as possible on the stage, with sets that were mammoth, lifelike and took a long time to change. Actors attempted to immerse into the roles, completely forgetting themselves in the process.

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"Bullshit" was Lin's response to what many consider the ultimate state of acting. Actors always have a dual function on stage, insists Lin. They are on one hand the roles, and at the same time can look on at the roles. These two functions may fluctuate and overlap during the course of creation, but never will one take over the other completely.

As a matter of fact, Lin's theory on acting is summarized in an analogy: An actor should be the puppet and the puppet master simultaneously.

Pu Cunxin, Lin's most frequent collaborator and a star in his own right, surprised many by saying at the forum that he does not have in his genes what Lin usually wants, but his solid training in theatrical traditions makes it possible for him to "relax", as Lin demands of his actors. "A bad actor would fare worse in Lin's plays than he usually would," suggests Pu.

Lin's departure from the modern realistic theater leads him back to China's own theatrical tradition of folk operas, such as Peking Opera. The minimalist sets leave much room for imagination, thus fitting the emerging venues of small theaters. Acting is no longer total immersion, but make-believe with conviction. Actors seem to be liberated from the confines of the stage and gain a new freedom as large as their imagination allows.

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At the forum, there was much discussion about the "fourth wall", the imaginary boundary between the stage and the audience. Realistic theater respects the fourth wall; German playwright and stage director Bertolt Brecht, who also drew inspiration from Chinese operas, intended to break it. What Lin Zhaohua did, according to Lin Wei-Yu, a Taiwan scholar who spent years studying the mainland director's art, is to totally ignore it. "There is no fourth wall in his eyes."

Young stage directors today no longer need to agonize over things like the use of the proscenium curtain between acts. The concept of the fourth wall may even be foreign to them. They can do whatever they want because pioneers like Lin Zhaohua have blazed the trail for them. But some scholars warn against treating Lin Zhaohua's style as a new ritual that binds more than unfetters.

In the past 30 years, Lin Zhaohua has directed more than 50 productions, mostly plays. He runs the full gamut from extremely realistic to very avant-garde. His version of Teahouse would make Stanislavski smile. His use of blind performers in the one-act play The Blind, written by Maurice Maeterlinck, was bold and provocative. He never stops experimenting. For one, he merged Chekov's Three Sisters with Beckett's Waiting for Godot. He was once inspired by the illustrations in The Divine Comedy to do a stage version of Dante's epic poem, an idea that fell through.