Learning Resources
Danny Yung Talk Series - Creative Elements 6: Structure
一張照片、一篇文章、一首流行曲、甚至是一個人都有結構。萬事萬物都有一個構造,舞台亦不例外。那種種舞台元素、意念是怎樣形成和整合的呢?榮念曾以填寫表格作引子,告訴你一個概念的結構、一個劇本的結構、一台戲的結構,可以由最基本的佈景、燈光和聲音開始。
00:00

All things have structures, but it is more complicated to talk about the structure of theatre. Of course, when we talk about the structure of a text, or the structure of a stage design, and the structure of a stage with lighting and sound, they are all very different. What is structure? What comes to mind immediately is our identity card. An identity card has its own structure, with your name, your birthday and a special number assigned to you, and then there's a photo as well.

01:00

There is a reason for this structure. Very often, we have to fill in a lot of forms, and those forms have structures too. The structures of those forms are designed for certain functions, and we are to fill in the forms with information. I always think that writing a script is very much like designing a form. Certainly, writing a traditional script is not like designing a form, but is like designing an essay, and then starting to develop the text, and turning it into a script. But, if we start with structure, then, I'd say we design a script for theatre by starting with a form. Writing scripts for theatre in the 21st Century is definitely more complicated than doing that in the 20th Century.

02:00

When we talk about the 18th and the 19th Centuries, they all started with text. In the 21st Century, we start to discuss the complexity of theatre, including a lot of elements on stage, from the changes in sound and lighting, to the changes of stage setting, to the changes of actors' movements, to the changes of sound, changes of music. If we integrate all these changes together, then it would turn into the changes and development of a theatre script. I believe that if we look at a script from a contemporary perspective, the possibilities of interpreting it would be numerous, that is, if we start with a structure. It seems very abstract in words, but in fact it is very concrete.

03:00

It's because, very often, when we are writing a script, if we start with the changing of light, then what we see is what the script allows us to see gradually, and those things would gradually disappear in the dark. And it would be another story when there is light again. This is not something written in words, but a story told by lighting. Of course, it is the same with stage setting, the same with sound. The changes and development of everything are not limited to the development of text, but we still start with words, just like what I'm doing now, talking to you. It too started with words and language. But we all understand that, when you listen to me, the visual experience is just as important, what kind of lighting, what is the situation, the way we participate, all are just as important.

04:00

A holistic theatre includes all these various elements. We start with structure, and we won't neglect any minute elements in a theatre. That's very important. The future theatre should be holistic, to see a theatre in every aspect, the changes and development of its space, time and all elements within. In 1979, shortly after I returned to Hong Kong, I started to rehearse on a piece with the Chinese title, “Breaking Record Number 1” in Hong Kong Arts Centre. “Broken Record Number 1” is the English title. Of course, there is a pun in it...good fun, breaking a record, who doesn't want that, but actually a broken record can also mean a broken vinyl record, with a small section of music playing over and over again.

05:00

But I guess many people don't know what that means because everybody listens only to cd's now. In “Broken Record Number 1”, I developed a form by starting with structure. Then, I asked all participating members, onstage and backstage, to fill in the nature of their participation. That's my first theatre experiment that started with structure. That experiment took place in the gallery on the 6th floor of Hong Kong Arts Centre. That was 1979, and I still remember the script of that piece was a form. In the years 1980 and 1981, I created a series of works named “Journey to the East, 1, 2, 3, 4”...that's the tetralogy of “Journey to the East”.

06:00

Actually, what that series dealt with was how to handle the concepts and communications of text, structure and the stage. All these aspects were put into the tetralogy. It took about two months to two and a half months to finish creating these four works. The first work is called “Intention” (literally, “motive picture”). Everybody knows what “intension” is...but I translated it as “pictures”, pictures that are related to motive. Everybody knows what intention means, that is something you want to do. I think we'd always ask ourselves what our motives of creating are. The second piece is titled “Past Event”, while the Chinese title is “Story”. Basically, we were trying to discuss what's the relationship of the past, present and future.

07:00

The third work is called “Question” in Chinese, with the English title “Question and Problem” because when the Chinese word “question” is translated into English, it could be “question” or “problem”. I always think that the theatre is a place to raise questions. The fourth work is called “Morphology”. This one is more difficult because basically this work dealt with the structure of communication, the language of communication, as well as the culture of communication. Each of these four pieces is about 80 minutes long, and they were all performed in Hong Kong Arts Centre. We started from the small studio in the basement, and then we moved to the outdoors, and then to the top floor, making use of all spaces. It touched on what we’re mentioning about body language, the experiment with sounds...all were covered in the that series. That was a relatively structural attempt, an experiment done in the early 80's. Later, in the year 1981, another work named “The Road“ was performed in the Exhibition Hall of City Hall.

08:00

“The Road” was a work of mine commissioned by the Hong Kong Repertory Theatre. The Exhibition Hall was a very large space and I divided it into 16 performing areas, and so it was actually an exhibition at first, and then gradually the areas paired up to turn into 8 exhibition areas, and then into 4, and then into 2. In the beginning, the audience wandered around, and eventually two circles were formed. The audience was gradually led to group together, and the two spaces were transformed into one space. A structure of 16 elements turned into 8, and then 4, and then 2, and finally into one big element. The last scene made a strong impression on me, because the audience was squeezed onto one side of the exhibition hall, and they were all facing a very big window.

09:00

Outside that window was Hong Kong, and when we turned all the lights to shine onto the window, the entire window was turned into a mirror, and the audience saw themselves in it, and couldn't see the Hong Kong outside. That was another very structural experiment. That experiment was trying to explore the element of space, the element of light, and the element of sound. We rearranged the elements, and a work was developed. When we deal with creating starting from structure, it is like we deal with writing starting from grammar. In that case, we return first to the basic structure of text, and then deal with the content of the text, so that the form and the content could appraise each other.

10:00

Usually, we'd think that there are some intrinsic and structural problems with narrative that need to be discussed. That's because narrative itself is very dominating, influencing the audience. That's why we would say let's begin with structure and anti-narrrative, taking away the concept of narrative. This way, it seems very neutral, because you will not be influencing the audience with the logic of narrating, but let the audience participate and have their own readings...through looking at the structure, the audience could see things, and hear things on their own, and stand not in only a receptive position, where they listen to what you tell them. Thus, this anti-narrative is an attempt that has to do with structure.

11:00

That is to say, in anti-narrative, we don't trust the text entirely, and we try to organise narrative without text. This attempt started in the 70's, continued through the 80's till the 90's. That does not mean we don't care about text. Of course, I always think that text itself has a structure. If we discuss about the structure of text, it will enlighten us in our reading of text. From the 1990's to the 2000's, what we try to examine is the structure provided by text and language itself, such as, idioms.

12:00

We do not try to discuss the reasoning in idioms, but try to deconstruct idioms, and the structure of idioms becomes part of the performance. This is the case with the performances of “Romance of the Rock”, “Romance of the Rock 97” and “Memorandum of the Rock”. For example, in “Memorandum of the Rock” we begin the performance with the two idioms, “never lose, never forget” and “leave not, abandon not”, then we try to look for a lot of idioms with the same structure. We organise all these idioms and turn them into another narrative. This type of narrative is not trying to teach the audience something or tell them a story, but that is something hard to avoid because in the process of reading, an interaction is established between the audience and the theatre, and this helps construct content. But what kind of message each member of the audience gets, depends on the extent of his participation. So, the attempt at that stage is to deconstruct the structure, and then reconstruct another.

13:00

This is one experiment that we always try in experimental theatre. I often think, if we start theatre with structure, that is like the form we have to fill in every day of our life. But who is the designer of that form? Can we create some forms which are more creative? Can we develop a more creative platform through structure in theatre? Of course, this platform would include something we are most concerned with, and that is, theatre is of the present, theatre is of real time, and of real space. Theatre is about communication, theatre is about interaction, theatre is about developing something together.

14:00

If we start with a more neutral structure, it would be like designing a form, and we can always modify the form, and we can constantly redesign some new forms, just like we are constantly redesigning a new theatre. Creating in theatre is different from making movies. Theatre talks about the current situation, theatre talks about the present, theatre does not talk about history. Theatre is a statement, an entity, made without editing by a lot of people. In theatre, there are a lot of situations that could be developed presently. That makes me think of “reality”, reality drama, reality theatre; the so called “reality show”, is that truly reality? But theatre is really reality because theatre talks about the present, always with the possibility of improvisation. Whereas, reality show is just playing reality.

15:00

That's why I'm always afraid that reality show would confuse people with what is real and what is virtual, when they put the reality and the virtual reality together. Reality is about the present, time, space, and how we could communicate with each other, interact with each other, and not about let's pretend it is real time, real space and live broadcasting. That's why I always think that to discuss reality by starting with structure is actually a very neutral strategy. How should we deconstruct the so-called public media now? We should do that by starting from a structural perspective.

16:00

I think that our education on text and language is very backward, and our education of media is even worse. When shall we start discussing structure and reality theatre with our young people? Should we discuss it with them when they have heard of the term, to explore with them its definition? Should we start in this manner? I think it is important to discuss the phenomena in arts in our society starting with structure.