那么多历史，在最开始的时候交待了一个基本信息，智人只会用故事来认知世界。然后，演员叫现场观众设置一个倒数53分钟的手机闹铃，便开始演出。场下手机闹铃开始此起彼伏响起的时候，就是酒后聚会子弹g射出正在轨道前进的时候，saved by the bell，情节就切播到一同无人应答的电话。
我觉得我很难讲清楚这部剧到底在说些什么。我觉得它也在尝试用一些model of reality来重新构建和阐释这个我们所生存的世界，里面讲到了Francis Fukuyama的“历史终结论”，还将到历史的天使可以看到一切，它想要帮助人类拯救人类却没有动手，因为它看到了进步（？）但我看到的这些历史的片段，为什么我觉得尽是人类愚蠢无知的行为？是因为我愚蠢无知，所以看到的总结出来也是吗？
Tag: 地下剧团, Walter Benjamin, Francis Fukuyama,
The Shadow Whose Prey the Hunter Becomes
捕捉猎人之影
2024.9.21
茉莉花剧场
在澳大利亚的一个小镇的会议室里，来了三个有智力障碍的人开始开会。他们三个人讲的话有时候口齿不清听不真切，背景有一个屏幕，上面实时显示语音识别的内容（字幕）。开会的内容是残疾人的会议、残疾人的宣言，残疾人感受到的不该由他们承担的shame、被不公的对待，abuse劳工（列举了很多爱尔兰的孩之宝的游戏）。会议的内容还包含了其他的一些少数派的伤害，讲到性侵，还讲到关于inclusion（Sarah说她害怕说不出来的时候，两位男士说要give Sarah voice），性别差异（Sarah被安排做前台，另外两个人是市长和建筑师）等等。最终其实是他们是activist，想要提醒大家，想要拯救世界。
看完以后最大的困惑是这些在台上表演智力障碍的演员们，到底是演出来的还是真的本身就是智力障碍。这在演出之后的导演谈话中揭晓谜底了，原来这个Back to back theatre company剧团就是全部是智力障碍的人参与的，不仅是演员表演演出，连剧本的创意、内容也都是这些智力障碍的演员们和导演一起参谋创作的。其方法和宗旨就是用各种方法empower演员，包括新技术的舞台音效设计、角色的创造、足够的好薪水等等。他们的主题往往是power、otherness、intelligence。好厉害啊！
谈话还提到了different level of authenticity，是现场AI语音识别还是字幕操作员在手动按钮展示字幕，是演员还是残疾人还是残疾人演员在讲这个故事，再配合这个剧本身想要传达的内容和方式的契合性，蛮有意思的。
这里不得不提我觉得这个中文版音乐剧还可以进步的地方，那就是歌词翻译。里面很多地方没办法翻译好，就直接用英文了，中英夹杂怪怪的。还有大主题曲《不多说，勇敢去做》，虽然我也没想出来“Actions speak louder than words”的更好的中文翻译，但总觉得不满意。还有就是特别不满意的是把《Come to Your Senses》翻译成《拥抱这感觉》，我个人觉得原文有一种责令呐喊的感觉，是叫Jon本文好好醒一醒看看这真实的世界和关系，中文翻译成这样的有点太傻白甜了。
Is it the Orwellian version of bureaucracy or is it Kafka? He said, I think it’s usually Kafka, where the right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing. I suspected that the Party’s instinctive tendency toward the ?? may have been one reason it had lasted so long. In a true technodystopia, where life was shaped entirely by the great firewall, the surveillance cameras and the face scanners, the system would have felt unbearable. Certain specific parts of society, like the oppressed Muslim residents of Xinjiang had reached this point. But for the majority of Chinese citizens, the system still wasn’t soul crushing. And there were clear benefits. Like in the second phase of the pandemic, even some of the kafkaesque moments were part of what made China Human one.
In the end, the Chinese government’s performance with Covid could be divided into three phases, each with a different lesson. The first phase in Wuhan reflected the shortcomings of a heavily censored media as well as a system in which local officials were inclined to cover up problems. The second phase showed more positive aspects of the Chinese bureaucracy. During this period, the longest of the three, the government developed a coherent and effective nationwide strategy, which benefited from decades of improvement to the educational system. In retrospect, it had been my family’s good fortune that we happened to be in China during this time. It also turned out to be our good fortune that we were forced to leave before the third phase. By the end of 2021, it was clear that Zero Covid was much less effective against the weaker but more contagious Omicron variant. Nevertheless, the government failed to adjust and many cities, including Chengdu, suffered long lockdown counts. Children in most parts of the country studied remotely for weeks at a time. One lesson from this final phase was a reminder of the system’s rigidity and its tendency toward kafkaesque bureaucracy. But it also showed what happens when too much power is placed in the hands of one individual who ignores strong evidence and good advice.
何伟的书给我的最大的感受是真诚，没有什么潜在的动机，是在很真诚的想要了解和讲述他身边的人和事。每每到何伟把自己的学生自己写的信或者文章读出来的时候，我都有一种想哭的感觉。有这样的记录者太好了，要是他能记录到2022年的上海封城、教育机构清理、房地产泡沫、裁员大潮就好了，就差那么一点点时间竟然发生了那么多的事情。我现在越来越觉得《Years and Years》里面的“一元T”理论有道理了，有中国特色的市场经济的加持下，真的解释了很多中国现在正在发生的事情（pdd的崛起、roi的要求和解决方法、用工业油罐运食用油等等）。这些说到底就是中国特色资本主义下的囚徒困境啊，学生时代我觉得囚徒困境是无解，现在觉得其实是有解的，即使资本主义设定下的人类再贪婪，不要相信资本主义不就好了，有更多元更开放更包容的价值观不就好了？
要说缺点的话，我个人觉得有两个。一个是表演得动作有点过于夸张，甚至有一点像是在给小孩子表演，但是从现场观众得反应来看似乎也是为了抓住观众的注意力和耐力（观众真的是在很幼稚的夸张表演桥段才有反应）。说到耐力，则是我觉得的另一个缺点，真的有点太长了。我知道要把原来就两三个小时的《哈姆雷特》演出来+解说很难比原来的剧的时长还短。但当我看到Avignon戏剧节的官网上这部戏在2021年首演的时候只有一个小时，叫做Épisode 1 – Un point c’est tout，我希望把现在算是全部完整完成的二个半小时了的版本按照episode分开来看。
Think which you would rather own: fifty thousand pounds or a piece of land valued at fifty thousand pounds. The only people likely to prefer the land are financiers who know how to increase its value by renting or reselling, so either answer proves that money is preferable to things.
My memory was a catalogue of things I had ignored and devalued. I had enjoyed no definite friendship or love, no intense hatred or desire; my life had been stony soil in which only numbers grew, and now I could do nothing but sift the stones and hope one or two would turn out to be jewels. I was the loneliest and most impotent man in the world. I was about to turn desperate when a lovely thing appeared in the air before me.
Only the miracle of my genius stops me feeling depressed about this.
Many hard workers make nothing but wealth. They don’t produce food, fuel, shelter or helpful ideas; their work is just a way of tightening their grip on folk who do.
What I hate most is their conceit. Their institute breaks whole populations into winners and losers and calls itself culture. Their council destroys every way of life which doesn’t bring them a profit and calls itself government. They pretend culture and government are supremely independent powers when they are nothing but gloves on the hands of Volstat and Quantum, Cortexin and Algolagnics. And they really think they are the foundation. They believe their greed holds up the continents. They don’t call it greed, of course, they call it profit, or (among themselves, where they don’t need to fool anyone) killings. They’re sure that only their profit allows people to make and eat things.
As the creature couldn’t stay rich by selling necessary things to the folk who made them it sold destructive things to the council. Then the war started and the destructive things were used to wreck the necessary things. The creature profited by replacing both. (The council) split in two and fought itself. The efficient half eats the less efficient half and grows stronger. War is just a violent way of doing what half the people do calmly in peacetime: using the other half for food, heat, machinery and sexual pleasure. Man is the pie that bakes and eats himself, and the recipe is separation.
