Year

1995

Text

Type

Publication

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Mentioned People (4)

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Chronology Entries (2)

#	Year	Text	Linked Data
1	1927	O'Neill, Eugene. Marco millions : a play [ID D28771]. Quelle : Polo, Marco. The book of Ser Marco Polo, the Venetian. Transl. and ed. by Henry Yule [ID D5467]. Bai Niu : In Marco millions, O'Neill utilizes the myth of Chinese characters to negate Western values. But since the motivation of the myth is the advocacy of change within the West, we find that O'Neill is reluctant to mythify the East to the extent of perpetuating the status quo of the West. As a result, here and there the real history of the Chinese characters breaks through the mythical confines. In this way, the use of myth helps create a complicated vision instead of a naïve contrast between the East and West. O'Neill approached the Marco Polo story with an initial intention to satirize and criticize greedy American businessmen. In talking about his plans about Marco millions in his Selected Letters, O'Neill writes : 'The child will be either a surprising satiric Beauty – or a most gawdawful monster'. O'Neill found the mythologization of Chinese elements an effective way to conduct his criticism, since myth by definition could conceal his motivation in such a way that his attack on American materialism could appear to be unquestionable and thus more powerful. All the central Chinese characters are apparently mythologized, representing values, Oriental wisdom, mysticism, and spirituality, opposed to the Polos' stupidity, superficiality, and materialism. In mythologizing the Chinese figures, O'Neill does offer some dynamics to the characterization of Marco Polo. The Chinese characters highlight Marco's material greed, insensitivity, ignorance, and triteness from three perspectives : Kublai's increasing mockery and criticism, Chu-Yin's disenchanted probe into his potential to change, and Kukachin's gradually intensified sense of disappointment, embarrassment, and despair. Between Kublai and Marco is a conflict between soul and flesh. As the emblem of Taoist doctrines, Chu-Yin is detached and only an observer of Marco. Kukachin's nor a non-conflict like Chu-Yin's ; it is a process passing from eager erotic involvement to total disengagement. Marco is totally unaware of Kublai's cynicism and criticism. His rather consistent cocksureness reveals his ignorance of anything spiritual. He is so blinded by his single-minded pursuit of material wealth that he interprets other people's remarks strictly along material lines. Instead of making direct confrontations with Marco, Chu-Yin observes him from a distance. He advises Kublai to let Marco develop naturally by himself. He wants to probe this representative of the West and find out whether Marco can change so as to realize his potential for wisdom and to achieve harmony with Tao. What Chu-Yin finally finds in Marco is all the qualities opposed to his Taoist doctrines. Serving as a foil, Marco's failure strengthens the validity and wisdom of Taoist thoughts. Another point of contrast illustrated through Chu-Yin is the distinction between humility and arrogance. Chu-Yin embraces the idea of humility. Marco's world is entirely controlled by money. So far as he is concerned, one can measure love only with gold and view beauty only with a mirror made of pearls and silver. Kukachin is another emblem of Oriental spiritual values, she contrasts Marco's triteness and insensitivity through her poetic nature and sensitivity. O'Neill accentuates the correlation between the quality of language and spirituality through the contrast between Kukachin and Marco, which is, first of all, an opposition between the poetic and prosaic. Kukachin's world is a poetic realm. She simply speaks poetry, while Marco is incapable of using any poetic diction, and even his 'poem' is imbued with monetary terms. For Kukachin, life is meaningless without love. If one realizes the spiritual value of love, for him or her, the difference between life and death is not that significant, if it exists at all. Kukachin is the only Chinese character who once had a positive impression of Marco. According to her own account, she had observed all Marco's instinctive, mostly unconscious, kind behaviors and innocent remarks and interpreted them as spiritual manifestations. In actuality, it was love that drove her to Marco's defence. She still believed in Marco's soul, and it was only two years later when the journey came to its end that she painfully realized that Marco was incorrigibly acquisitive, and to him, spirituality and sensitivity were incomprehensible foreign qualities. Bayan, Kublai's general is basically a warmonger and cannot live in peace for an extended period of time. He becomes restless and helpless because 'everywhere in the East there is peace'. The only thing which would occupy him is war. O'Neill's mythologization of the East has created a total negation of the West. Although this total negation fulfills O'Neill's intention to criticize the materialism of the West, it would rule out any possibility for reform, since the total negation is the real myth. Lee Sang-kyong : The Taoist idea of a dualistic world becomes the essential characteristic of Marco millions. The dualism of all earthly phenomena finds its expression not only in the antithesis of male and female, life and death, to be or not to be. The Yin-Yang-principle of Taoism is also expressed in the Western and Eastern life styles such as the modest cheerfulness of the Eastern people and the rough pragmatic life struggle of the Western people. Through his occupation with the Orient, O'Neill was more and more convinced, that Oriental wisdom could offer a hopeful alternative to the Western world's materialistic society. Marco Polo is the personification of the Western dream of materialistic success, and the Chinese empror Kublai Khan is very disappointed of Marco's materialistic attitude. The emperor seed in Marco – who is the representative of Christianity – the spiritual abnormity of the West, as O'Neill repeatedly discloses in the course of the plot. In a romantic romance with Kukachin, the granddaughter of Kublai Khan, Marco feels the magnetic power of the East. For him, wealth and power are more important than feeling. Even the Taoist wisdom of Chu-yin, the emperor's counselor, does mean anything to him. For him, the Orient's wisdom and beauty, embodied by Kublai Khan and Kukachin, are ridiculous and inconsistent. But Kublai, interested in the spiritual development of man, intends to initiate a dialogue about the existence of soul between one hundred wise men of the West and wise men of Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism. Marco is only deeply impressed by the 'millions upon millions of worms' of the silk industry which could produce 'millions upon millions of capital'. O'Neill shows with irony the contrast between the Western materialism and ancient China's aestheticism during Marco Polo's time, pointing out the antithesis of the Westerners' materialistic greed and the mystic wisdom and splendor of Kublai Khan's court. He wants to show the fundamental difference between the Taoist East and the superficial and pragmatic Western civilization. The two opposite world views are represented by two characters : Marco Polo stands for materialism, rationalism, pragmatism, and Princess Kukachin is the living example of idealism and intuitive mysticism. Chu-yin, the counsellor is the only character who is untouched by all the events and remains in harmony with the teaching of Laozi and Zhuangzi. Horst Frenz : O'Neill's interest in the East is most evident in Marco millions. The presentation of a mercantile Marco sent and sanctioned by the Pope as a wise man to represent the wisdom of the West to the East is full of irony. Marco is beyond redemption ; he is totally untouched by the spiritual beauty of Kukachin, the the Taoist wisdom of Chu-yin never reaches his philistine mine. The short exchange of remarks between Chu-yin, the subtle sage of China and Marco, the rash philistine emissary from Venice, sums up the difficulty of an understanding between East and West. The shallowness of the action-oriented West prevents Marco from comprehending the subtleties of the East whose wisdom lies in a quiet observance of the true course of nature, in an attitude of wise passiveness so characteristically Taoist. The scenes, in which Marco establishes a new tax system, introduces printed money, and discovers that gunpowder, up to now used by the Chinese only for fireworks, can be employed for destructive purposes, are filled with biting satire. In a remarkably subtle manner, O'Neill manages in various ways to point out the basically irreconcilable differences between Taoist wisdom and the superficiality of Western civilization. James A. Robinson : Marco millions follows the lines of conventional Western tragedy, which assumes a dualistic universe of irreconcilable conflict – though here, rather than God or nature defeating man, it is West destroying East. Underlying the East-West conflict of the action is a similar conflict within O'Neill, whereby Western dualism ultimately triumphs over the harmonic view of the universe O'Neill discovered in Taoist thought. The play's Eastern elements represent the dramatist's suspicion that at the deepest level, man and world and cosmos were integrated and serene ; but his pessimistic modern-Western side seems reluctantly convinc4ed that man and universe are in hopeless conflict, a conflict reflected in the irreconcilable opposition of Oriental and Occidental cultures. The similar stage groupings and character types symbolize the profound identity between different cultures that makes understanding possible. The response of Marco emphasizes cross-cultural conflict. The farther he journey East – through lands whose mystical creed preach tolerance and renunciation – the more intolerant, ethnocentric and materialistic he becomes. As a prime 'example of virtuous Western manhood', Marco learns nothing from fifteen years in China, pointing up an apparently unbridgeable gap between East and West. His materialism intensifies. The relationship between Kukachin and Marco dramatizes the polarity of the conflict between East and West. Marco exudes intolerance, while Kukachin radiates the supreme tolerance of one who loves a totally different person. Marco loves the treasures of this world, while Kukachin transcends them. Kukachin, who is feminine, passive, and spiritual, corresponds to the 'yin' principle in Chinese thought. The Occidental Marco corresponds to 'yang', the masculine, rational and active principle. The monistic Taoist influence on the play extends to O'Neill's portrait of Kublai Kahn. The Emperor, called 'Son of heaven, Lord of the earth', harmonizes the masculine rationality and aggressiveness of the West, and the feminine intuition and passivity of the East. Khan's Taoist harmony is upset by Marco and his effect upon Kukachin. Only one Chinese character remains unperturbed, and consistently maintains the detachment of the Oriental sage : Chu Yin, Khan's advisor. His advice accords with the teaching of Laozi and Zhuangzi. James S. Moy : O'Neill sought to contrast the obsessive materialism of a Babbitt-like character with a positive representation of a romanticized historical China. Despite the clear comic intent of the piece, one could assume that the Chinese world at least receive a 'positive', if not 'realistic', portrayal within this framework. O'Neill was successful in his satirical portrayal of the Venetian trading family, his use of the Orient proves problematic. His characterizations of the Chinese are intended to show subtle differences. In designing his imaginary marginality called China, O'Neill fell into the trap of stereotyping the Orient, thereby displacing/erasing the reality while China disintegrated into representation. Li Gang : The Taoist influence in Marco millions has been studied by quit a few critics in both the East and the West. They all seem to agree that the Taoist influence permeates almost every aspect of the play : theme, structure, characterization, dialogue, and setting.	Document: Robinson, James A. Taoism and O'Neill's 'Marco millions'. In : Comparative drama ; vol. 14, no 3 (1980). (One49, Publication) Document: Frenz, Horst. 'Marco millions' : O'Neill's Chinese experience and Chinese drama. In : Comparative literature studies ; vol. 18, no 3 (1981). (One47, Publication) Document: Eugene O'Neill in China : an international centenary celebration. Ed. by Haiping Liu and Lowell Swortzell. (New York, N.Y. : Greenwood Press, 1992). (Contributions in drama and theatre studies ; no 44). S. 30, 34, 38. (One56, Publication) Document: Tao : reception in East and West = Tao : Rezeption in Ost und West = Tao : réception Est et Ouest. Ed. by Adrian Hsia. (Bern : P. Lang, 1994). (Euro-Sinica ; Bd. 5). Euro-Sinica symposium, May 25-29, 1993 at McGill University, Montreal. S. 190-193. (Hsia10, Publication) Person: O'Neill, Eugene
2	1969	Albee, Edward. Box and Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung [ID D32172]. [Excerpts]. Introduction. While it is true that these two short plays—Box and Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung—are separate works, were conceived at different though not distant moments, stand by themselves, and can be played one without the company of the other, I feel that they are more effective performed enmeshed. Even more... Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung would most probably not have been written had not Box been composed beforehand, and Mao is, therefore, an outgrowth of and extension of the shorter play. As well, I have attempted, in these two related plays, several experiments having to do—in the main—with the application of musical form to dramatic structure, and the use of Box as a parenthesis around Mao is part of that experiment. I may as well insist right now that these two plays are quite simple. By that I mean that while technically they are fairly complex and they do demand from an audience quite close attention, their content can be apprehended without much difficulty. All that one need do is—quite simply—relax and let the plays happen. That, and be willing to approach the dramatic experience without a pre¬conception of what the nature of the dramatic experience should be. I recall that when a play of mine called Tiny Alice opened in New York City a few years ago the majority of the critics wrote in their reviews—such as they were— that the play was far too complicated and obscure for the audience to understand. Leaving to one side the thoughts one might have about the assumption on the part of the critics that what they found confusing would necessarily confound an audience, this reportage had a most curious effect on the audiences that viewed the play. At the preview performances of Tiny Alice the audiences—while hardly to a man sympathetic to the play—found it quite clear; while later—after the critics had spoken on it—the audiences were very confused. The play had not changed one whit; a label had merely been attached to it, and what was experienced was the label and not the nature of the goods. A playwright—unless he is creating escapist romances (an honorable occupation, of course)—has two obligations: first, to make some statement about the condition of "man" (as it is put) and, second, to make some statement about the nature of the art form with which he is working. In both instances he must attempt change. In the first instance—since very few serious plays are written to glorify the status quo—the playwright must try to alter his society; in the second instance—since art must move, or wither—the playwright must try to alter the forms within which his precursors have had to work. And I be¬lieve that an audience has an obligation to be interested in and sympathetic to these aims—certainly to the second of them. Therefore, an audience has an obligation (to itself, to the art form in which it is participating, and even to the playwright) to be willing to experience a work on its own terms. I said before that these two plays are simple (as well as complex), and they are simple once they are experienced relaxed and without a weighing of their methods against more familiar ones. Sekundärliteratur Bai Niu : Albee's plays are highly experimental in nature : Box represents only a distorted cube and a recorded voice ; in Quotations, the four characters have no direct verbal communications. Mao just quotes himself from his little red book and the Old Woman simply recites sentimental doggerel by Will Carleton. Over half of the play is to Albee's credit only as recreation through fragmentation and juxtaposition, along with a couple of revisions, of those quotations. Part of the experiment, as Albee himself explains, is 'the use of Box as a parenthesis around Mao'. In fact, Mao is framed by the Box both literally and figuratively. And this relationship between the framing and the framed is the most important and dynamic aspect of the play in both theatrical and thematic terms. Albee selects and rearranges the quotations not at random but with a specific concentration in mind. Another important feature of Albee's methodology is that he does not always quote the whole excerpt from 'The little red book'. Here and there, the actual speeches in his play are excerpts or 'quotations' from Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung. [Peking : Foreign Langugages Press, 1966]. What Albee wants is a general, and possibly depoliticized, contrast between Mao's China and 'U.S. imperialists'. As a result of Albee's selection and rearrangement of those quotations, Mao could be seen as representing a somewhat abstract but consistently strong, aggressive, vital, and self-confident force determined to defeat the increasingly isolated 'paper tigers' – U.S. imperialism and its running dogs, who are still making trouble everywhere, but actually fast approaching death. The framing Box endows the relationship between the Mao and the Western characters with certain mythical potentialities. The correspondence between Mao and the bird flying in the opposite direction in the Box is murky and indeterminate. This ambiguity allows a mythical reading of Mao and at the same time invites transgression of its boundary. To read Mao as a myth presupposes a suppression of history, but Mao's speeches are too historical and political to be treated, in a sustained manner, as something transhistorical or apolitical. The tension between Mao as a myth and Mao as a communist dictator creates much dynamic ambiguity. If the West is the Self, Mao, as a Chinese figure, is obviously the Other representing the East. The mythologized Mao is just such a mirror that Albee uses to identify the West. Albee is unwilling to negate the Self without any reservation. He still loves the civilization too much, despite all its corruption, to abandon it for the 'Other'. Albee could employ Mao to signify the direction of reform without embracing Communist revolution. The indeterminacy of Mao's function achieves clarity and accuracy. In his musical experiment Albee is able to create polyphonic effect on various levels : first, the 'interactions' between different speeches, including that of the voice ; second, the framing and transgressing relationship between the Box and Quotations ; and finally, since the audience's or the reader's active participation is absolutely required, there exists a mandatory dialogue between them and the play. Albee's experiment is not merely for the sake of experiment ; his choice of the musical form is intended to serve his purpose of reflecting the complexity of the reality of Western civilization and contemplating the function of arts as well as the responsibility of an artist. Albee does not impose an unequivocal authorial voice upon his audience, since the issues he wants to dramatize are complicated and do not have ready solutions. The upshot of the polyphonic effect is an enrichment of the theme of the play. The play is a protest of a declining civilization, of the degeneration of arts and other components of life, but it is not only a protest in opposition. It is a 'protest used to be in favor of something', as Albee himself put it in an interview. The play also pints out hope, in a prevailing atmosphere of despair, by presenting the bird flying in the opposite direction and the mythologized Mao, and thus advocates change. From Albee's use of the Mao myth in these interrelated plays, the form and content are marvelously consistent in generating a desirable indeterminacy in order to reflect the complexity of reality and the role of art.	Document: Albee, Edward. Box and Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung : two inter-related plays. (New York, N.Y. : Athenaeum, 1969). [Erstaufführung Studio Arena Theatre, Buffalo 1968]. [Mao Zedong]. (Albee4, Publication) Person: Albee, Edward

Cited by (1)

#	Year	Bibliographical Data	Type / Abbreviation	Linked Data
1	2000-	Asien-Orient-Institut Universität Zürich	Organisation / AOI	Cited by: Huppertz, Josefine ; Köster, Hermann. Kleine China-Beiträge. (St. Augustin : Selbstverlag, 1979). [Hermann Köster zum 75. Geburtstag]. [Enthält : Ostasieneise von Wilhelm Schmidt 1935 von Josefine Huppertz ; Konfuzianismus von Xunzi von Hermann Köster]. (Huppe1, Published)