威爾森《海洋寶石》的問題化和再現

Abstract

威爾森《海洋寶石》的問題化和再現非裔美國劇作家威爾森的《海洋寶石》是2003 在年演出，2004 年出版的戲劇。這齣劇同時也是威爾森十齣二十世紀美國歷史劇的第一齣戲。這齣戲沒有像《圍籬》一樣得到普立茲獎，也不像《鋼琴課》一樣得到東尼獎，而且它既沒有那麼好的票房，也沒有得到評論家的眾多討論。部份原因是本戲也才問世四年，同時，其他原因可能是本戲涉及非裔美國人難以忘懷的慘痛歷史問題，以及戲中奇特的不可思議的再現。這齣劇背景是發生在1904 年賓州匹茲堡，艾絲特姑姑家裏。艾絲特姑姑是當地黑人的智慧師，她聲稱自己已285 歲。她家中有門房艾力及管家黑瑪麗，黑瑪麗受艾絲特的保護，將來也會繼承艾絲特的工作。蘇利以前是個奴隸，曾是地下鐵路列車長，他常來探訪艾絲特姑姑。施若格是個沿街叫賣的雜貨商，他也常來艾絲特姑姑家兜售商品。黑瑪麗的哥哥凱撒是個當地的出租公寓房東，他同時也是此地警察；他也常來艾絲特家看望他妹妹。席德真是個來自阿拉巴馬州的年輕人，他一路找到艾絲特姑姑家。初到北方，他就聽說艾絲特姑姑可以幫人洗滌靈魂，而他正是良心受譴的人。他心中充滿悔過，因為他從他工作的工廠偷了一桶鐵釘，可是另外一個人卻被誣告是偷釘子的小偷；結果為了躲避凱撒追趕，這個人就在河裡給淹死了。接著一連串的事件接踵而至，包括黑人工人暴動，暴動者被逮捕，工廠被人縱火燒了。得到黑瑪麗、艾力、及蘇利的幫助，艾絲特姑姑帶著席德真搭上一艘叫做「海洋寶石」的紙船在海上航行，他們先演出當年黑奴在船上被拷打的情形，接著他們抵達了「骨之城」，在骨之城席德真看到他的祖先擁有天上的榮耀。這趟象徵旅程使席德真恢復自信。但就在他們都同聲歡唱慶祝此一靈魂洗滌儀式圓滿成功之時，凱撒來抓蘇利，因為他們查出來是蘇利就是放火燒工廠的人。在施若格的協助下，蘇利逃走了。他本來是要去阿拉巴馬州救他妹妹來北方，因為她來信說南方白人發瘋了，拼命的殺黑人以防他們都逃到北方。可是蘇利走到一半就決定回頭先去救那些因為工廠暴動而被抓去關起來的人，但不幸的是他被凱撒發現，並被凱撒射中身亡。戲尾，席德真雖然也被凱撒追殺，但還是決定冒險到南方完成蘇利的計畫救出他妹妹。威爾森寫此戲時，心中想著1900 年代和2000 年代的時空，於是他在戲中特別強調兩個非裔美人的問題--個人迷失和罪惡感。前者的具體呈現就是凱撒對黑人同胞的無情對待，而後者則由席德真的怯於認錯來呈現。這兩個問題化顯示出劇作家對美國黑人問題的沉重關懷。然而比這兩個問題化呈現手法更令人困惑的是劇中高度象徵及間接暗示的再現，而這些再現手法卻又可指出非裔黑人的解惑方法。《海洋寶石》中有三個令人困惑的再現：第一是艾絲特姑姑的人生哲學；第二是艾絲特姑姑幫助席德真洗淨過往的「中間之道」旅程；第三是席德真繼承蘇利任務的舉動。第一個問題化是黑人的迷失。威爾森戲中罕有白人角色，但在他多數作品中白人看不到的存在是可強烈感受到的。他也不願在他的作品中刻畫壞人，因為他通常都相信人都是具有好壞兩種面向的。因此，看到《海洋寶石》中凱撒竟是個帶著白面具的壞黑人時，是令人相當困惑的。凱撒因為執行白人律法，又要做公寓出租生意賺大錢，所以他就用暴力對付「黑鬼」，用鐵石心腸對付他的房客來賺大錢。對劇作家來說，有些黑人真的在新世界中迷失了。第二個問題化是黑人的罪惡感。戲中，男主角席德真就是一般黑人代表，他得面對他的生活，好好生活。就像康拉德的吉姆大爺一樣，他怯於承認自己犯錯後就一直受到良心譴責。他的膽小間接地害死一個無辜的人。對劇作家來說，席德真的懦弱就暗指黑人對白人主宰霸權的降服。除了此二問題化外，有三個值得深入探討的再現。這齣戲中第一個再現是艾絲特的信仰。有鑒於凱撒受到白人法治系統和資本主義系統同化，及席德真的懦弱行為，威爾森則召喚出智者--艾絲特姑姑，在1904 年她就宣稱她285 歲了。她的治療和教誨是來自於基督教和黑人信仰。在其他戲劇如《鋼琴課》，威爾森對基督教是多所批判。因此，在此齣戲中，用到基督教教義的地方相當多，他對基督教的看法較溫和。與過去相比，似乎相當不一致。第二個重要的再現是中間之道的旅程。為了幫助席德真卸下對過去的良心譴責，艾絲特姑姑用自己的賣身契折成紙船；在艾力、黑瑪麗、蘇利的合唱聲中，她帶著席德真航過中間之道抵達骨之城。這一段中間之道，真的帶領觀眾重回幾百年前，被誘拐的非洲人從非洲航向美洲之旅。抵達骨之城席德真碰到關於守門人布朗--那位寧願死的清白也不願活的不清不白的黑人，─的這件事則充滿了基督教的寬恕涵意。而骨之城則又跟無以數計、被虐死的非洲人的真正價值息息相關。第三個重要的再現是席德的接棒行動。席德真最後決定承接蘇利的位子，去南方解救水深火熱中的蘇利的妹妹。這個第一步具體呈現席德真已被救贖，並顯示他願意繼續幫助其他黑人的決心，這是蘇利傳承給他的使命，而他的舉動也是劇作家藉此劇傳承給觀眾的最重要訊息。在此計畫中，我將使用傅柯(Michel Foucault)的「問題化」概念來剖析凱撒及席德真的問題化角色塑造。當學者在1984 年面訪傅柯問他別人給他貼了許多標籤的看法時，傅柯提出「問題化」的概念。根據他的定義，問題化與行動、實踐、思想相關，而且會對政治提出許多問題。傅柯的問題化根植於他所謂的「問題歷史」。這用他的問題化可使我們了解「各種問題的解決方法是被建構出來的，這也可以幫我們進一步看出不同解決之道其實又來自另一個問題化」（傅柯 389）。除了傅柯的理論，我另外用那拉（Pierre Nora）對回憶及歷史的看法，及威爾森自己的看法來看劇中的再現手法。威爾森認為非裔美人應適當利用他們自己的回憶來創建他們的歷史。那拉及威爾森都同意邊緣族裔是要靠回憶來寫他們的歷史。威爾森把黑奴的中間之道旅程寫進他戲中是富有深刻意義的，因為這段將近四百年前的歷史對現今黑人來說是難以想像的。再者，威爾森為黑人救贖而編的骨之城的神話在非裔美國文學中也是嶄新的嘗試。而這兩種再現手法都是來自黑人記憶。本計畫試圖藉由《海洋寶石》中的問題化與再現而釐清威爾森的啟迪。

The Problemization and Representation in August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean Gem of the Ocean, premiered in 2003 and published in 2004, is the first of the ten decade-by-decade chronicle plays by African American playwright August Wilson (1945-2005). Unlike his Pulitzer Prize winning Fences (1987) and Tony Award winning The Piano Lesson (1990), Gem of the Ocean did not have a brilliant sales record in box office and nor had it garnered much of the critics’ discussion. Part of the reason can be attributed to its young existence since its production history is only four years old and part of the reason can be attributed to the unbearable problems of African Americans and the uniquely mystical representation in the play. The play is set in 1904 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, at the home of Aunt Ester, a spiritual adviser who claims to be 285 years old. She has been well taken care of by her gatekeeper Eli and Black Mary, Aunt Ester’s protégé and housekeeper. Solly Two Kings, a former slave and former Underground Railroad conductor, is a frequent visitor to Aunt Ester’s place. Rutherford Selig, a traveling peddler, visits Aunt Ester’s home frequently. Black Mary’s brother Caesar, a local entrepreneur and a constable also often comes to visit Black Mary. Citizen Barlow, a young man from Alabama, finds his way to Aunt Ester. He is a troubled young man, new to the North, who has heard that Aunt Ester can wash people’s souls. Citizen is filled with guilt because he stole a bucket of nails from the tin mill he worked for but another man, wrongly accused, drowned in the river when evading the pursuit by Caesar. A series of events ensue—including a riot, arrests and the burning down of the mill. With the help of Black Mary, Eli, and Solly, Aunt Ester takes Citizen on a ritualistic journey, first on an imaginary slave boat named “Gem of the Ocean,” where they re-enact the torture of the slaves, then to the City of Bones, where Citizen visualizes his ancestors in the otherwordly glory. The symbolic journey is restorative, but just as the group is celebrating, Caesar arrives to arrest Solly for setting fire to the mill. Solly manages to escape with the help of Selig. He is on his way to Alabama to rescue his sister who has written that the whites have gone crazy, they are killing blacks who try to leave for the North. But Solly turns back to free those who were imprisoned during the mill riot and is shot dead by Caesar. At the end of the play, Citizen Barlow, also a target of Caesar’s rage, decides to make the dangerous journey back down the South alone to carry out Solly’s plan to rescue his sister. With the space and time of the 1900s and 2000s in his mind, Wilson chooses to stress the two problems of African Americans—personal loss and guilt. The former is embodied in Caesar’s malice over his own people, and the latter Citizen’s cowardice in confessing his transgression. Both “problomizations” are indicative of the playwright’s anxious concerns about the recurrent problems blacks have in America. But more disturbing than the manifestation of the problems is the symbolic and allusive representation in the plays, which points to the salvation of African Americans’. Three things contribute to the disturbing representation in Gem of the Ocean—first, Aunt Ester’s philosophy of life; second, Aunt Ester’s ritual of sailing the Middle Passage to cleanse Citizen’s past; third, Citizen’s act to take over Solly’s mission. The first problemization is blacks’ personal loss. August Wilson rarely includes white characters in his play but their invisible presence is felt everywhere in most of his works. Nor is he inclined to depict the villainous blacks in his plays because he often sees both the bright and dark sides of each individual. Therefore, it is quite puzzling to see in Gem of the Ocean Caesar is the black character who wears a white mask. Because of his job to enforce whites’ law and his boarding house business, Caesar uses violence to control “niggers” and cruelty to gain profits from his tenants. To the playwright, some black men are seriously lost in the new world. The second problemization is blacks’ sense of guilt. The male protagonist Citizen is black Everyman who needs to face his life and make a meaningful decision to live right. Like Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim, he suffers from the reproach of conscience after he failed to timely admit his misconduct. The indirect consequence of his cowardice causes an innocent man’s life. To the playwright, Citizen’s cowardice refers to the submission of African Americans to whites’ domination and hegemony. In addition to the problemizations, there are three representations worthy of further exploration. The first representation is Aunt Ester’s belief. In view of Caesar’s assimilation into the white legal and capital systems and Citizen’s cowardly behavior, Wilson invokes the wise bard—Aunt Ester Taylor, who is said to be 285 years old in 1904. She combines Christianity and black faith in her healing and instruction. Christian religious faith is criticized in other plays by Wilson, such as The Piano Lesson. Hence, it seems quite incongruent for Wilson to employ Christian teaching in this next-to-last play for his fellow blacks. The send representation is the enactment of sailing the Middle Passage. To help rebuild Citizen’s life without the menace from the guilty past, Aunt Ester folds a boat out of her Bill of Sale, and in their poetic arias of Eli, Black Mary, and Solly, she takes Citizen in the boat sailing through the Middle Passage to the City of Bones. The episode of the Middle Passage takes the audience to revisit the horrific voyage those abducted Africans went through hundreds of years ago. After the journey, Citizen reaches the City of Bones and sees the gatekeeper –Garret Brown, the men who would rather die in innocence than live in falsehood. This episode is loaded with Christian connotation. The episode of the City of the Bones also relates to the true value of the countless Africans victimized. The third important representation is Citizen’s taking over Solly’s mission. Citizen finally decides to help save Solly’s sister from her dire situation. This first step concretely shows Citizen’s redeemed self and his determination to carry out the mission to help other fellow blacks fight for one’s freedom. This is a mission passed down from Solly to Citizen and his act is also a kind of the insemination of the main message the playwright would like to convey to his audience. In this project, I intend to use Michel Foucault’s concept of “problemization” to dissect the problematic characterization of Caesar and Citizen. When explaining his view on being labeled as anarchist, leftist, ostentatious or disguised Marxist, nihilist, explicit or secret anti-Marxist, technocrat in the service of Gaullism, new liberal, etc, Foucault brings forth such a concept of problemization at an interview with Paul Rabinow in 1984. By his definition, problemization is related to the development of domain of acts, practices, and thoughts that seem to pose problems of politics (Foucault 384). Deeply rooted in his “history of problematics,” Foucault’s problemization will help us see “how the different solutions to a problem have been constructed; but also how these different solutions result from a specific form of problemization” (Foucault 389). In addition to Foucault’s theory, I will also resort to Pierre Nora’s view of memory and history and August Wilson’s own special idea about how African Americans should make good use of their memory to rebuild their history. Both Nora and Wilson believe the marginalized group’s history rests on memory. It is of particular importance for Wilson to include the inaction of the slaves’ voyage in the Middle Passage, since this history that happened four hundred years ago is hard to be conceived for modern African Americans. Moreover, the myth of the City of Bones invented by Wilson for the redemption of blacks is also new to African American literature. Such devices of representation are indebted to blacks’ memory. It is hoped that Wilson’s illumination can be clarified from studying the problemization and representation depicted in Gem of the Ocean.