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6/8/2006 Joan of ArcTo commemorate the 575th anniversary of death of the French heroine, Joan of Arc, a drama “The Night Before…” was staged at the Lili’u Theatre at Hawaii Convention Center. It was performed by an Italian actress, who is also a physicist and a fellow toastmaster. She even traveled to France, to where Joan of Arc died, to breathe the air and feel the touch of the French heroine.
The play was unconventional in that there is only one character and one scene throughout the 1.5 hour of performance. The monologue was the imaginary last words of the heroine during her last night in prison before she was burnt at the stake the next morning, a cruel death. Right after the actress finished her play around 9pm on May 29th at Hawaii, it was the approximate moment when 575 years ago Joan of Arc died at Rouen, France.
Joan was an ordinary shepherd girl in North East France at the time of English invasion into France in the 15th fifteenth century, until she stood out to fight against the enemy and turn the historical tide. Out of faith, she believed that God asked her to save her country. She convinced French King, Charles VII, to give her the troops and rescued besieged cites. Like a Goddess of Victory, Joan led the army from victory to victory. English soldiers were scared of her; French people worshipped her; French King envied her. In the end, she was betrayed by French King and captured by the English, who wanted to put her to death unless she admitted that God didn’t ask her to save France. She made a conscious choice of death, for her country, her people and her faith.
The one-person drama was about how Joan faced death “dramatically” and justified her faith in God. The emotional development was complicated: panic to hysteria, doubt in justice of God, illusion of leading her people again, disillusion in despair, reminiscence of family life, role-play as Satan, deeper despair and stronger faith, which pacified her fear for a painful death. She shouted, screamed, struggled, stumbled, swore and prayed very gently above all.
This rendering of a heroic figure is realistic. She was after all a girl of 19. She wanted to have a family, she missed her parents, and she had all the characteristics, tearful and tender, as a flowery girl at her age. But she had a rock determination to save her nation, in spite of her humble origin and her “feminine” gender. Before her tears went dry, she delivered such a passionate and inspirational speech to her imagined people that you see a warrior, a general and a hero in the 19-year-old girl.
Of all the lines the actress uttered clearly with her Italian accent, I remembered this one electrical sentence: “French people, it is not your right to fight, but your DUTY.”
When her countrymen gave up defending France, she rose to restore courage, hope and faith to them. It is very touching to visualize how great a woman can be. As a mortal, she is vulnerable. As a martyr, she is invincible.
She did not die for a blind faith. In the last hours of her life, she inquired strenuously on God’s will. She reasoned, argued, challenged and concluded amid her fitful breakdowns that Satan or evil existed not just in the enemy but everywhere. French King, for his own good, sold her to the enemy. France could only be saved when she died, by which she proclaimed her faith louder than ever. Because God loved her, she reasoned, she should die and never surrender and admit that she was a witch, not sent by God. This act of opting for death is what transcends a mortal to immortal.
Till today, French people worshipped Joan of Arc. One vivid example is that when Christian Dior succeeded in launching his first haute couture after WWII in 1947, French media called him “Joan of Arc”. (Regardless of his gender. So immortality also transcends gender.)
3/20/2006 HamletismPractically, I have nothing to say about the play, because last night I was 6 minutes late for it. And all the other evening shows begin at 11pm. That's "late night show". I cannot stay up that late to enjoy a play in good clear mind.
But one thing I learned by this experience of failing to watch this drama is punctuality. In China, like going to a movie, once you pay, you are allowed to go inside, no matter you are late or not. But here, with respect to those already inside, the latecomers are barred from getting in, even if at the cost of shunning them away.
Punctuality is a big problem for me. Because all my life, mostly, I am late a few minutes. Seldom on time, and rarely 10 more minutes earlier. Probably, I was raised in a culture, not puntual. Remember very clearly how I and my classmates were indignant, when our 8th grade teacher didn't show up and let us wait for 2 more hours. And when he finally came, not a word of apology from him. Seems children of our age have no need of respect to our time.
Now I see this is a basic social manner. Respect others' time. 3/16/2006 King KongI was haunted by the movie. Late at night, I couldn't sleep. The scene, the man's head swallowed by a large worm-like teeth-armed monster from the abyss bottom swamp, insisted play and replay in my mind. I kept thinking and feeling how the man suffers when he falls prey to the large worm, how his head pains when the monster's digestion organs start to melt down his skin and skull. Will there be any needles inside the horrible mouth of the worm? Then the questions turn to be more realistic... Why can't he sway his sword to cut the fleshy thing into pieces? How can such huge creatures exist in the bottom of the food chain? Will there be enough unfortunate animals mistakenly falling down from above?
But anyhow, such a fictional movie is not totally based on nature laws. It's made to stimulate you into feeling rather than to provoke you into reasoning. Other suspiscious moments include: how come the big bat carry the hero and heroine from the cliff to the coast (I thought it came to eat them, not to help the lovers, but of course heros are never to die in the middle of a movie), how can the leaking ship restore and even carry the huge King Kong back to New York, how can the heroine struggle and survive in the jungle without eating anything, and her night gown dress remain intact.
Why was I so easily captured and vulnerable to the dream display on a screen? First, the movie was viewed in a theater, rather than on laptop. Its effect and impact became so strong that it felt like the horrible scene happening in front of my eye, a few yards away. Second, I thought I grew tough enough to stare at whatever bloody and creepy scenes, but I was wrong. The fact that I didn't protect my nerves from the vivid visualized imagination of a man-eating jungle made me nightmares.
Skip the skull island part, it is a heart-touching and meanwhile thought-provoking movie. I heard young or old ladies weep and sob in the dark theater. And I had moistured eyes. And it made me think human beings are also horrible creatures by killing aliens, just like the dinosaurs and beasts, insects, reptiles in various shapes on the island. Whenever something appears scary and threatening to humans, they kill it. In the movie, King Kong looks like a threat, breaking down the theater and traffic in desparate search and protection of his sole companion, the heroine who gained its trust and sympathy by a real breakthrough of cross-spieces communication, and other fellow human beings misunderstand that and interpret King Kong's behavior as destructive and dangerous, and without much thinking (I wonder where the environment conservation groups stand at the crucial night and morning. Maybe they have the same reaction as other frightened humans. After all it's in the 1930s.), the collective wisdom decides to kill it, even if King Kong may be the last one of its spieces.
The movie is a sarcastic to human wisdom or folly, human-centered values, and what we think we are. Often times, we are just beasts and monsters, clothed and educated. We panic irrationally to the unknown and kill the alien to protect ourselves. In contrast to the narrow-minded drive of self-protection and other-elimination, it's really admirable to communicate cross spieces. Nowadays, we have problem in communication cross gender, generation, race, or class, not to mention spieces. And that's why I respect those field scientists, who spend most of their lifes in the wilderness in hope of communication with other spieces, like a bird, a monkey, or a fish, regarding them as equals to humans. |
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