美国先锋戏剧里的道禅思想与美学:一种跨文化谱系考察

Tao and Zen in the Politics and Aesthetics of American Avant-Garde Theatre: Approaching an Intercultural Genealogy

1960年代是美国文化史上最具戏剧性、表演性的时期,各种反体制、反文化运动风起云涌,美国先锋戏剧潮流随之高涨,世纪初欧陆历史先锋派的政治与美学得以复兴。但60年代的美国先锋戏剧还可以追溯至一种"东方"神秘主义倾向:道家及深受道家影响的禅宗既是儒家文化的逆流,也是中国美学的主要源泉,经欧陆历史先锋派理论和美国战后反文化运动的传播,其回声也激荡于美国先锋戏剧。后者通过误读或化用汲取呼应了道禅思想,借此突破欧美戏剧传统和主流文化的困囿。本文从反、易、观、真四个维度追溯道禅思想及美学与美国先锋戏剧的联系,通过系统梳理贯穿于美国先锋戏剧巅峰时期的一支深潜源流,试图描绘美国先锋戏剧理论与实践的一种跨文化谱系,并以此为视角探讨美国先锋戏剧的历史意义。

In the 1960s, a most theatrical decade in American cultural history, currents of anti-establishment counterculture movement intertwined with a swelling tide of American avant-garde theatre, which revived the politics and aesthetics of the historical avant-garde of early twentieth-century Europe. Like its European precursors, the American avant-garde theatre planted part of its roots in the otherness of ＂Oriental＂ mysticism. Taoism and Zen Buddhism, as countercultural thrusts against Confucianism in the Chinese context and as major sources of Chinese aesthetics, also found avant-garde echoes in American theatre of the 1960s in its efforts to break the bondage of conventional Western drama and mainstream American culture. Tentatively mapping an intercultural genealogy of the American avant-garde theatre in theory and practice, this essay focuses on such Taoist or Zen Buddhist concepts as reversal, change, vision, and authentic truth to trace the political and aesthetic links between Tao or Zen and American avant-garde theatre, and thereby to explore the historical impact of vanguard performances in the 1960s and after.