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Total Heroism: Reinterpreting Sartre's Morts sans sépulture (The Victors) for the Chinese Stage
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 August 2019
Abstract
Zha Mingzhe's 1997 production of Sartre's Morts sans sépulture takes bold creative license in the form of retooled dialogues; hard-edged stage design; moody, ironic music; and the brutal acoustic ‘facsimile’ of torture to reimagine the play for Chinese audiences. Zha's production is neither an exuberant celebration of ‘heroism’ as the term is conventionally understood, nor a parable-like play given to ‘philosophizing’ the core tenets of Sartre's existentialism. Rather, it is a full-scale, in-your-face presentation of ‘total heroism’: heroism that is flawed, falling far short of the kind of heroism idealized in the annals or mythologies of the so-called ‘red classics’, but it is heroism nonetheless. It is an interrogation, in the fullest sense of the term, of the ‘essence’ of being tested in the crucible of ferocious tortures, and a ‘cruel’ antidote much needed to shock the numbed nerves of the body politic.
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Footnotes
The authors are deeply grateful to the former Senior Editor Paul Rae and current Senior Editor Fintan Walsh for their thoughtful comments and suggestions. Many thanks also to the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback.
References
Notes
2 Sartre, Jean-Paul, The Writings of Jean-Paul Sartre, Vol. I: A Bibliographical Life, ed. Contat, Michel and Rybalka, Michel (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1974), pp. 130, 132, 135Google Scholar, italics ours.
3 Ibid., p.141.
4 According to Simone de Beauvoir, Sartre had been thinking a great deal about torture in the early 1940s: whether he should speak about it; what would be the best way to handle it; what would be the relation between the torturer/executioner and his victim; how to negotiate individual pride, ethics and praxis; and so on. Sartre, The Writings, p. 135.
5 Freeman, Ted, Theaters of War: French Committed Theater from the Second World War to the Cold War (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1998), p. 51Google Scholar.
6 This synopsis of the play is based on Sartre, Jean-Paul, Three Plays, translated by Abel, Lionel (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1949)Google Scholar.
7 Sartre, The Writings, pp. 135–6.
8 Ibid.
9 Freeman, Theaters of War, pp. 61–3. See Vidal-Naquet, Pierre, Torture: Cancer of Democracy, France and Algeria 1954–62 (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1963)Google Scholar; and Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954–1962 (London: MacMillan, 1977)Google Scholar. The French government did not publicly acknowledge and apologize for torture until almost two decades into the twenty-first century. See Angelique Chrisafis, ‘France Admits Systematic Torture during Algeria War for First Time’, The Guardian, 13 September 2018, at www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/13/france-state-responsible-for-1957-death-of-dissident-maurice-audin-in-algeria-says-macron, accessed 1 October 2018.
10 Liu Datao, ‘Sate Si wu zangshen zhi di zai zhongguo de wenxue jieshou’ (Literary Reception of Sartre's Morts sans sépulture in China), Sichuan University Arts and Sciences Journal, 21, 6 (November 2011), pp. 77–81.
11 See Kang, Liu, ‘Chapter Three: The Rise of Commercial Popular Culture and the Legacy of the Revolutionary Culture of the Masses’, in Kang, Globalization and Cultural Trends in China (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2004), pp. 78–101Google Scholar; and Hulme, Alison, ed., The Changing Landscape of China's Consumerism (Oxford: Chandos Publishing, 2014)Google Scholar.
12 Sartre, Jean-Paul, Existentialism Is a Humanism, trans. Macomber, Carol (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), p. 43Google Scholar; Qingmei, Tao, ‘Canku, bianzheng yu lixiang’ (Cruelty, Dialectics, and Ideals: An Interview with Director Zha Mingzhe), Wenyi yanjiu (Art Research), 2 (2009), pp. 66–75Google Scholar.
13 Tao Qingmei, ‘Canku, bianzheng yu lixiang’, pp. 70–1.
14 Brady, Anne-Marie, Making the Foreign Serve China: Managing Foreigners in the People's Republic (New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2003), pp. 94–6Google Scholar; and Cox, Gary, Existentialism and Excess: The Life and Times of Jean-Paul Sartre (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016), pp. 190–1Google Scholar.
15 Liu Datao, ‘Sate re yu gaige kaifang chuqi de sixiang qimeng’ (Sartre Fever and Intellectual Enlightenment in the Early Days of Reform and Opening Up), Xueshu tansuo (Scholarly Exploration), 4 (April 2012), pp. 1–5.
16 This portion of the discussion draws from Liu Datao, ‘Sate si wu zangshen zhi di’; Jianhong, Li, ‘Ershi shiji cunzai zhuyi zai zhongguo de chuanbo yingxiang’ (Introduction and Reception of Existentialism in China in the Twentieth Century), Journal of Langfang Teachers College, 21, 2 (June 2005), pp. 81–4Google Scholar.
17 Liu, ‘Sate si wu zangshen zhi di’, p. 78.
18 Ibid.
19 Long, Jiang, ‘Si wu zangshen zhi di: Yige cunzai zhuyi de daode beilun’ (Morts sans sépulture: An Existentialist Moral Paradox), Foreign Literature Review, 3 (2000), pp. 53–6Google Scholar.
20 Dai Shuping, ‘Meichou jianbei de zhenshi yingxiong jianrui fuza de xiju chongtu: Ping simu beiju Si wu zangshen zhi di’ (Real Heroes both Beautiful and Ugly, Dramatic Tensions Sharp and Complex: On Four-Act Tragedy Morts sans sépulture), Zuojia (Writers), 20 (2008), pp. 41–2.
21 Huilin, Luo, ‘Bu keneng de ziyou xuanze: Cunzai zhuyi zhexue shijiao xia de Sate xiju Si wu zangshen zhi di jiexi’ (Impossibility of Free Choice: Sartre's Morts sans sépulture through the Lens of Existentialist Philosophy), 4 (2009), pp. 46–58Google Scholar; and Li Jun, ‘Ziyou xuanze de cengci yu beilun: Si wu zangshen zhi di jiedu’ (Layers of Free Choice and Paradoxes: Interpreting Morts sans sépulture), Xiju congkan (Drama Series), 1 (2010), pp. 40–52.
22 Dongping, Ran, ‘Huigui xianshi zouxiang zheli: Ping Sate de Si wu zangshen zhi di’ (Back to Reality toward Philosophy: On Sartre's Morts sans sépulture), Contemporary Foreign Literature, 1 (2005), pp. 79–84Google Scholar.
23 Other English titles for the play include Men without Shadows by Kitty Black. See ‘Kitty Black’, The Guardian, 13 February 2007, at www.theguardian.com/news/2007/feb/13/guardianobituaries.artsobituaries, accessed 10 December 2017; and The Unburied Dead.
24 Tao Qingmei, ‘Canku, bianzheng yu lixiang’, p. 69
25 Gui Han, ‘Sate de Si wu zangshen zhi di zai zhongguo’ (Sartre's Morts sans sépulture on Chinese stages), S hanghai Theater, 2014, pp. 20–1.
26 As indicated earlier, this discussion of the ‘dramatic text’ of Zha's theatrical reinterpretation of Sartre's play is based on the video of the 2005 revival production (with the same cast for the 1997 production), available at www.bilibili.com/video/av8700162.
27 See ‘July 14 (1933)’, at www.imdb.com/title/tt0024480, accessed 11 December 2017. For the lyrics in French see www.paroles-musique.com/paroles-Patrick_Bruel-A_Paris_Dans_Chaque_Faubourg-lyrics,p838. The English translation of the lyrics is provided by Laura Dubuire.
28 Dihou wugong dui (Armed Detachment behind Enemy Lines), at https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%95%8C%E5%90%8E%E6%AD%A6%E5%B7%A5%E9%98%9F/2991, accessed 22 December 2017.
29 See Guoen, Chen, Langman zhuyi yu ershi shiji zhongguo wenxue (Romanticism and Twentieth-Century Chinese Literature) (Hefei, Anhui: Anhui Educational Press, 2000)Google Scholar.
30 Sartre, Three Plays, p. 199.
31 Ibid., p. 201.
32 Ibid., p. 203
33 Ibid., p. 204
34 In the ‘red classic’ Hongyan (Red Crag/Red Rock), a 1961 novel based on real people and events in the late 1940s, Communist heroes such as Sister Jiang (based on Jiang Zhuyun, 1920–49), ferociously tortured, refused to inform or to collaborate with their Kuomintang government jailers. A letter Jiang Zhuyun managed to send out before her execution includes the following quote: ‘Tortures are too small tasks for the Communists. Bamboo sticks are made of bamboo, but the will of the Communists is made of iron and steel.’ A poem (below), supposedly written by one of the jailed revolutionary martyrs, that appeared in an earlier non-fictional book, turns out to have been written by the two authors inspired by the heroes:
Heavy shackles clang below my feet; no matter
Leather whips swing against my face; no matter
In your confession I will take no part
Even with bloody bayonet piercing my heart
See ‘Sister Jiang: Committed Her Life to Communist Ideals, Died 29,’ 25 June 2016, at www.womenofchina.cn/womenofchina/html1/people/history/1606/2674-1.htm, accessed 15 January 2018; Xujun Eberlein, ‘Another Kind of American History in Chongqing, 1: Prologue’, The Atlantic, 31 January 2011.
35 Sartre, Three Plays, pp. 204–8.
36 Ibid., p. 266.
37 Ibid., p. 267.
38 Ibid., p. 209.
39 Ibid., p. 235.
40 Ibid., p. 201.
41 Ibid., p. 271. Not everyone who saw the performance approves of this moment of breaking the fourth wall. For some, it interrupts the ‘realistic’ mode of acting that has been established. Moreover, it doesn't fit the character of Canoris, who has come up with the idea of feigning to collaborate with the enemy. See Hong, Zhou, ‘Chuangzao yu bianyi: Si wu zangshen zhi di guanhou gan’ (Creative Variation: Thoughts on the Production of Morts sans sépulture), Xiju (Theatre), 1 (1998), pp. 133–7Google Scholar.
42 Sartre, Three Plays, p. 271.
43 Ibid.
44 Ibid., p. 234.
45 Ibid., p. 227.
46 Ibid., p. 259.
47 Lyrics in French from www.paroles-musique.com/paroles-Patrick_BruelA_Paris_Dans_Chaque_Faubourg-lyrics,p838; English translation provided by Laura Dubuire:
Among the crowd a love lays
On a twenty year old soul
Everything changes for it
Everything is the colour of spring.
48 It is interesting to note here that, according to Zhou Tao, music and sound designer for the Zha production of Morts sans sépulture (1997, 2005 and 2014), some versions of the production also used ‘Lili Marlene’, sung by Lale Anderson (1905–72), a German love song popular during the Second World War among both Axis and Allied troops, although this song does not appear in the video recording of the 2005 production under discussion. In his memoir Eastern Approaches, Fitzroy Maclean (1911–96), Scottish soldier, writer and politician, thus describes the emotive effect the song had on him in the spring of 1942 during the Western Desert Campaign: ‘Husky, sensuous, nostalgic, sugar-sweet, her voice seemed to reach out to you, as she lingered over the catchy tune, the sickly sentimental words … The continent of Europe seemed a long way away. I wondered when I would see it again and what it would be like by the time we got there.’ Zhou Tao, ‘Huaju Si wu zangshen zhi di de yinyue sheji he yinxiang xiaoguo’ (Music and Sound Design for Spoken Drama Production Morts sans sépulture), Yanyi keji (Performing Arts Technology), 10 (2015), pp. 59–61; Leibovitz, Liel, Lili Marlene: The Soldiers’ Song of World War II (New York: W. W. Norton, 2008), p. 5Google Scholar. For the lyrics of the song see https://lyricstranslate.com/en/lili-marleen-lili-marlene.html.
49 Sartre, Three Plays, p. 199.
50 Ibid., p. 199.
51 Our translation based on the performance video and Sartre, Three Plays, pp. 252–3.
52 Our translation based on the performance video and Sartre, Three Plays, pp. 210–11.
53 Sartre, Three Plays, p. 261.
54 Ibid., p. 261
55 Zhou, p. 61.
56 Sartre, Three Plays, p. 217.
57 See note 34.
58 Sartre, Three Plays, pp. 228–9.
59 Ibid., p. 232.
60 Ibid., p. 235.