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THE FUTURE OF RITUAL and Wasserstrom do not always stick to it). As Victor Turner has emphasized, and as I have pointed out, the relation between ritual and theatre is dialectical and braided; there is plenty of entertainment and social critique in many rituals (see Turner 1969 and 1982, Schechner 1974 and 1988a). Conversely, theatre in its very processes of training, preparation, display, and reception is ritualized. The struggle in Tiananmen Square before the entrance of the tanks was not between rigid ritual and rebellious theatre, but between two groups of authors (or authorities) each of whom desired to compose the script of China's future and each of whom drew on both theatre and ritual. The students improvised in public, while the officials, as always, rehearsed their options behind closed doors. The students took Tiananmen Square, the center stage and ritual focus of Chinese history. Official culture was literally upstaged. When Deng Xiaoping, Li Peng, and the generals of the People's Liberation Army felt their authority slipping, · they radically shifted the basis of the confrontation from theatre and ritual to military force. But even after the slaughter of 3-4 June, there were moments of high theatre such as when an unarmed man, his fate since unknown, stood his ground in front of a column of tanks (plate 3.6). For their stage the students claimed not just any old spot, but the symbolic and operational focus of Chinese political power. And despite the orderliness of their demonstrations and the seriousness of their intentions, the students acted up a carnival. Their mood of fun, comradeship, irony, and subversion enraged and frightened China's officialdom. Students camped out willy-nilly all over the place (plate 3.7) in patterns as different as can be imagined from the rigid rectangles and precise lines of official gatherings (plate 3.8). The students sang and danced, they spoke from impromptu "soap boxes," and granted interviews to the world press. They unfurled sarcastic, disrespectful banners including one depicting hated Premier Li Peng as a pig-snouted Nazi officer. "Flying tigers"- students on motorbikes -carried news to and from various parts of Beijing, linking the Square to the city and the rest of China. Even the hunger strike, in which thousands participated, had the feel of melodrama rather than the sanctity of one of Gandhi's laydowns (though certainly the Mahatma knew his political theatre -and how sanctity would play in India and Britain). Events in Beijing from the perspective of Shanghai underline the importance of theatricalizing media. From mid-May until 8 June I was in Shanghai directing a new Chinese play about the aftermath of the cultural revolution at the People's Art Theatre (plate 3.9). What was happening in Beijing was of THESTREETISTHESTAGE Plate 3.6 A moment of incredible symbolism, drama, and bravery: a lone man halts a line of tanks advancing through Tiananmen Square on 5 June 1989. (Photo: AP/Wide World Photos) great importance to me and those I was working with. During the days immediately preceding the Tiananmen Square massacre of 3-4 June, official media - TV, radio, and newspapers - kept changing tune according to whether hardliners or people sympathetic to the students were calling the shots. Once the tanks rolled in the media toed the line, but in an eerie way. The main headline of the 5 June China Daily (the official English language newspaper) reported the death of Ayatollah Khomeini. A lesser headline, bereft of capital letters, said, "Martial law troops are ordered to firmly 'restore order'." For several days on TV only the reporters' voices were beard, no images. Unofficial media worked very differently. At the personto-person level, students went back and forth from Shanghai to Beijing 58 59
THESTREETISTHESTAGE Plate 3.8 The People's Liberation Army on parade in Tiananmen Square in July, 1951 for the celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party. Note the rectangular formations of official culture on display. (Photo: AP!Wide World Photos) Plate 3.7 Thousands of exhausted but intrepid students camped out willy-nilly all across Tiananmen Square on the morning of 22 May 1989. This scene was typical in late May and early June - until the Chinese army "cleared" the Square. (Photo: AP/Wide World Photos) bringing news by word of mouth. Once martial law was declared at the end of May, it was rare to meet someone who "was there." People listened to the Voice of America and BBC; newspapers and magazines in Chinese and English came in from Hong Kong (for sale at the big tourist hotels or smuggled by individuals). After the massacre in Tiananmen Square, a friend rented a room at the satellite-equipped Shanghai Hilton. Even as Chinese official media were claiming that only thirty-six students had been killed in the Square, and that the students had been the aggressors, a crowd of Chinese and foreigners in the hotel room watched with terror and excitement as CNN broadcast direct shots from Beijing; routed back to Atlanta 60 61
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Page 15 and 16: THE FUTURE OF RITUAL shilly-shallie
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