Breaking Out of the “Main Melody”: Meng Bing and His “Monumental Theatre”

Abstract

Through the darkness an eerie unsettling melody on discordant Western strings is echoed by a single Chinese lute. The woody notes of a bamboo pipe break through like a mournful cry. Percussion and trumpets join the discordant strings to take the music into a frenzied crescendo, only to break off and be followed again by the lonely notes of the pipe. Out of the darkness a great stone mask emerges—dominating the stage, staring out at the audience, stern and intimidating— the face of Shang Yang. As the stage grows brighter the silhouettes of five terracotta horses appear—the symbols of Shang Yang’s success and the symbols of his brutal end. At the back of the stage a row of terracotta warriors emerge from swirling mist, standing impassively — symbols of the might of Qin. Discordant trumpets and piano take the music to a new crescendo as a male choir chants rhythmic warlike cries. Through the mist, a white-clad figure appears and walks calmly to the horses. This is the ghost of Shang Yang condemned to roam for eternity as the soul of a dismembered body. Suddenly the voice of a shaman booms out over the audience: he foretells that the new born babe, Shang Yang, will bring disaster to his parents, cause his whole family to be exterminated, a nd will be torn apart by five horses. Shang Yang listens and smiles, defiant and scornful, proclaiming that though he died, his reforms unified China and have lasted a thousand years. The stage returns to darkness.¹