1. Summary of the Plot of “Secret Love of Peach Blossom Land”
“Secret Love” and “Peach Blossom Land”, originally two different and unrelated crews, were forced to rehearse on the same stage due to a scheduling error. In order to fight for the rehearsal space, the two crew you did not sing and I appeared, forming a stage spectacle of ancient versus modern, intertwined with sorrow and joy.
The Secret Love is a modern tragedy in form. The main characters, Jiang Binliu and Yun Zhifan, meet and fall in love in Shanghai in the 1940s due to the war. After that, they flee to Taiwan from calamity. However, they thought each other stayed on the mainland and did not have the chance to meet one day, so they get married to other people and have children. 40 years later, Jiang Bin Liu feels dying and hope to take a look at the first love, so he placed a front-page advertisement in the China Times looking for Yun Zhifan. Two people finally meet after missing 40 years, but can only say “have you ever thought of me”.
The Peach Blossom Garden is a comedy in ancient costume. Lao Tao, a fisherman in Wuling, escaped from home to the river used fishing as an excuse because his wife Chunhua had an affair with the landlord, Boss Yuan. However, he accidentally entered the Peach Blossom Garden and lived like a fairy. Although there is a woman who looks like spring flowers in the Peach Blossom Garden, Lao Tao never forgets his wife’s spring flowers and wants to pick them up when he comes home. At this time, more than ten years have passed outside the Peach Blossom Garden. Boss Yuan and Spring Blossom have both married and had children. Although they continue to quarrel because of life conflicts, they all unanimously regard Lao Tao as an “outsider”. Lao Tao had to return to the peach blossom Land alone, but could not find the way back.
The two plays, which seem to have no connection in plot, are connected in connotation by the story of crazy women looking for Liu Ziji. In a sense, “Secret Love” and “Peach Blossom Garden” both tell the same story, which is also an extension of the mad woman’s search for Liu Ziji. “The Secret Love”, a tragedy, and “Peach Blossom Land”, a comedy, are staged together, and they are collaged by montage. They cannot be defined simply as tragic comedy. They combine sadness with joy, blend happiness with sadness, making “Unrequited Love of Peach Blossom Land” a charming mixture.
2. The Tragic Love
Hegel suggests that the starting point for deciding what ends the tragic characters go after are the ethical forces that have solidity in the realm of human will. These forces turn against each other as the original harmony is disrupted in the process of leading the action plot to bring itself to fruition ( [1], pp. 284-285). The most obvious pair of ethical forces in the crush is the kinship love between Jiang Binliu and Yun Zhifan and the national political life. For Jiang Binliu and Yun Zhifan, the kinship love between them clashes with the ethical forces of national political life that lead to the severance of communication between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait in the pursuit of the specific purpose of reunion.
In the wave of the times, Jiang Bin Liu and Yun Zhifan are both faced with the choice of “waiting or not waiting” under the condition that they cannot hear from each other. If you choose not to wait and enter into marriage with another person, you are giving in to the pressure of reality and reconciling with another force, but at least you will not lose your companionship for the rest of your life; if you choose to wait, you may have to face an empty preparation. In the end, Jiang Binliu could not stay with his lover Yun Zhifan for a long time. They each sent many letters to each other on the mainland, and the fact that they were both in the Taiwan area, “a little Taiwan made it difficult for us.” This is not so much a barrier of the strait as a barrier of fate. There was also an antagonism between Mrs. Jiang and Jiang Bin Liu. Mrs. Jiang, no matter how generous she appears, inwardly wants her husband’s focus to shift back to this family, which is her reasonable demand as a wife. And Jiang Binliu is struggling for a result because of his first love that ended without a problem. Thus, the position of Jiangbinliu and Mrs. Jiang collide.
The demands of the opposing ethical forces are reasonable from their own perspectives, but they are wrong due to their one-sidedness ( [1], pp. 286-287), for example, Jiang Binliu’s demand to see her first love is reasonable from the perspective of fulfilling her dream, but such a move obviously hurts Mrs. Jiang’s heart.
One might argue that Jiang Binliu could have buried his first love in his heart and lived out his life in peace with Mrs. Jiang, as many people in his life do. Yet herein lies the essence of tragedy. Hegel argues that the character of a truly tragic figure requires an activism and dynamism to realize these solid ethical forces, “they are exactly the kind of figure that should and can be done according to principle” ( [1], pp. 284-285). It is because Riverside is the central character in this tragedy that the conflict between him and Mrs. Riverside is so irreconcilable; if Riverside had chosen to compromise, “Secret Love” would no longer be a passable tragedy.
Thus, the tragedy of the conflict in “Secret Love” lies in the fact that each of the two opposing sides in this conflict has a reason to defend itself, while at the same time the real content of the purpose and character that each side uses as its own insistence can only be denied or destroyed by the other side, which also has a reason to defend itself ( [1], p. 289). In the second half of “Secret Love”, Jiang Binliu meets Yun Zhifan and gets his wish fulfilled. They both have happy and fulfilling families with each other and cannot renew their former relationship, but both of them accept the result. The first half of the conflict is reconciled when they accept that they cannot renew their previous relationship. At the same time, we can also see Mrs. Jiang’s compromise, she acquiesced to Jiang Binliu’s ability to find her first love, and reached a reconciliation with Jiang Binliu. This “feeling of reconciliation” is what Hegel calls the “triumph of eternal justice” above the two tragic emotions of fear and pity ( [1], p. 286).
Hegel sees tragedy as a process of conflict creation and resolution ( [1], p. 289), and in this sense, Crush is a modern drama that conforms to Hegel’s theory of tragedy.
3. The Comedy of Peach Blossom Land
According to Hegel, the contradiction or disproportion between essence and phenomenon, end and means falling short in realization is ridiculous ( [1], p. 291).
In the drama, Lao Tao always felt inferior because of his low masculinity but he loved his wife Chunhua. He also pretended to turn a blind eye to her and Mr. Yuan’s affair, but finally the two forced to face up to the fact that he did not have a proper place in the home. As a fisherman, Lao Tao always can’t catch big fish, by his wife Chunhua and Yuan boss laugh at; as a man, he is sterile and hopes to cure the disease with medicine, but it costs him all the money he earns from the very small fish he catches. And be a husband, he cannot prevent the adultery of wife Chunhua and Yuan boss again. After repeated self-deception, he finally could not bear the huge impact of the reality of life. All his goals are divorced from reality, and there is no possibility to achieve their goals. Therein lies the laughability.
4. Sadness and Joy Are Two Sides of the Same Body
From the outside, these two plays seem to be one of the past and the present, one of the sad and one of the happy. They seem to have little connection, but they faintly echo each other on a deeper level―the theme of Secret Love is memory. The Peach Blossom Land is, in part, about forgetting. The former is not willing to forget but can not meet, and the latter is to forget but can not escape. The hero of the story is persistent, also desperate…The climax of the whole play seems to be the two crew rehearsing together on the stage, when you come to me, such as the nurse said: “You are still waiting for her, I don’t need to see!” Old TAO PLUG IN: “I AM AFRAID SHE IS WAITING FOR ME.” In another, Mr. Yuan says: “Don’t go back. You will only interfere with their lives.” The nurse put in: “I mean Miss CLOUD if really come, things might be more troublesome.” Old TAO INSERT: “HOW TO SAY THIS?” The nurse interrupts: “Because you might be more upset [2].”
In this scene, the lines of the two scripts can be seen together without any abruptness as if they were the same script in the play. The “Secret Love” is the table, the “Peach Blossom Source” is the inside, the “Peach Blossom Source” in the performance of Lao Tao understand Chunhua choose Yuan boss, only want to see the love of his life again at the same time by the two plays alternating lines of the technique to say Jiang Bin Liu waiting for his first love monologue. Lao Tao doesn’t know if Chun Hua will come, and Jiang Bin Liu doesn’t know if he can see his first love again before he dies. Lao Tao understands that the woman he loves already has a new lover and a new family; for Jiang Bin Liu, why not have such a panic. From this point of view, Lao Tao’s struggle is Jiang Bin Liu’s struggle; Lao Tao’s loss is Jiang Bin Liu’s loss. At the same time, in terms of the purpose of the play, both are indeed talking about the core concept of “unable to forget” [3].
Director Lai Shengchuan himself said: “Sadness and happiness are two sides of the same coin”. The connection between “Secret Love” and “Peach Blossom Garden” is self-explanatory.
Hegel believed that the contradictions and discordance between essence and phenomenon, end and means, motive and effect, subjective and objective, etc. produced comic effects [1]. To achieve comic effect, it is necessary to show the contradictions and incongruity between the characters in the play, such as nature and phenomenon, purpose and means, motive and effect, subjective and objective, so as to arouse people’s sense of superiority. Such incongruity means that someone inferior to you will inevitably encounter difficulties and be “ridiculed”. In this sense, it is “sad” for the “ridiculed” individual. Therefore, in Hegel’s view, the core of comedy is the expression of people’s self-destructive intention, “the beginning of comedy is the end of tragedy” [4]. How do you know whether Jiang Binliu and Yun Zhifan will become Boss Yuan and Chunhua after the union. In fact, when Jiang Binliu and Mrs. Jiang are still reading cloud fan after the union, and Mrs. Jiang shares a strange dream, isn’t this the state of Boss Yuan and Chunhua after the union?
5. The Overall Tragedy of the Secret Love of Peach Blossom Land
In addition to the content of “Secret Love” and “Peach Blossom Land” itself, we also need to pay attention to the seemingly abrupt clue in the drama―a mad woman’s search for a man named “Liu Ziji”, which connects “Secret Love” and “Peach Blossom Land” on a higher level.
We don’t know if THERE is SUCH a person AS LIU ZIJI, but we do know that he is a non-existent person on the field. We do not know the crazy woman to find Liu Ziji’s real motive, she just kept on pursuing, will be a different person identified as Liu Ziji. Therefore, starting from Liu ZIji’s characteristic of “not existing in the scene”, the pursuit of Liu Ziji can be shown as a futile pursuit of untraceable people and things, and ultimately everything can only lead to nothingness. In contrast, “Secret Love” and “Peach Blossom Land”―Lao Tao’s pursuit of the Peach blossom Land, and Jiang Bin Liu in the newspaper after the age of 40 to find the cloud of fan. In contrast, “Secret Love” and “Peach Blossom Land”―Lao Tao’s search for the Peach blossom Land, Jiang Binliu in the newspaper 40 years later to find the cloud of fan. Both have a theme of search, and neither story ends in an accidental nothingness. Old Tao can not go back to peach blossom land, and Jiang bin Liu can not go back to a few decades ago there is a camellia woman’s night. From this point of view, “Crazy Woman” naturally connects the two plays “Secret Love” and “Peach Blossom Land”, and skillfully connects the two lines of drama and reality.
The tragic nature of “Secret Love” is a hint of this unsatisfying pain, as the ambiguity of Liu Ziji’s identity and the result of his final loss show that life is not just a trick of fate, that what is desired is never obtained.
The tragedy of “Secret Love” and the comedy of “Peach Blossom Garden” are staged together, forming an implicit polyphonic structure between the dialogue and the answer, expressing the director and creators’ deep thoughts on theater, life, love and other major philosophical issues.