Revisiting Fisher King 3
It was the first time I talked again with Chan Ping Chiu after the performance of Fisher King 3. We seized the chance to meet once more tonight before he flies to Singapore for staging the piece there.
I have been thinking the new approach he adapts for this version resembles recent 20 Beans' shows to certain extent, with its focus more indulgently set to explore possible means of visualization of literary theories and intentionally ignore other usual dramatic elements (not theatrical elements), such as plots, transitions, emotional release, contexts, etc. Perhaps except the two playful badminton scenes which give a mental break from the rich but hardcore "lecture". Being built on the director's previous experience of telling the same story, it is difficult, I imagine, for the new audience (who have not watched any of the last two versions) to perceive the depth of significance out of the developments. Some clever audience would swift to look into the "energy" and "poetry" of the performance. It is attractive after all for its clean staging and video images.
I told Chiu I felt most resonance at the end of the "diagnosis" scene, with its reference finally grounded on the notion about wound (experience, (hi)story, etc.) and means of expression. An artist's reflexive reference. I confessed that it was probably a desire of an ordinary audience: to find out why you are telling me all these abstractions and leading me through this intellectual exercise instead of what they are. In another word, a logic/reasoning, a story (still), a connection to "our" lives.
One thing Chiu has mentioned tonight is pertinent for my learning: experiments and refinements. He realized the problematic areas - about the ten preceding segments composed of abstruse codes from various philosophers' theories (like Lacan, Nietzsche and Freud's). Then he tried to adjust by juxtaposing the loaded voice-over with visuals and actions. "Sometimes there were too many images which totally subdued the text and sometimes vice versa. Then I readjusted... throughout the three evenings. I observed the subtle changes of my emotional engagement immediately as an actor also."
Myth is no longer available for contemporary theatres to contain ideas, Chiu mentioned. (How interesting this utterance remarks the treatment of the tale of Fisher King by himself.) I think we have to turn inside, for artists in any era, to search for the form in question... (Subsequent dialogues on Directors' Lab planning to be continued.)
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