Forging the Swords began as one of China’s oldest revenge tales. In the legend, the swordsmith Gan Jiang forges a pair of swords for the King of Chu, knows the King will kill him for taking three years, and hides the male sword for his unborn son. The son grows up and, with the help of a stranger, takes his revenge. Three heads end up in one cauldron, and since no one can tell them apart, they are buried together.

Lu Xun, the founding figure of modern Chinese literature, retold the legend in the autumn of 1926, after a year in which government troops in Beijing fired on student protesters, two of them his own students. The stranger in his story calls himself Yanzhi Aozhe, a pen name Lu Xun had used himself. The avenger in black is, in part, the author.

I adapted the story for the stage, directed it, and designed its set and costumes. The play runs in two scenes on a single July day, with a cast of eight.

2

Scenes, one live transition

8

Performers, nine roles

5

Pieces of scenery

My work is in narrative, so the adaptation is where this project starts. Lu Xun’s story covers years and a long journey: a boy leaves home, wanders the hills, meets a stranger in the woods, and the stranger walks into the palace alone. A two-scene showcase cannot hold that, and a stage cannot show most of what happens in it. Every decision below answers one of those two limits.

Starting from a sentence

“First, your sword. Second, your head!”

The play began with that line. Everything else in the story could be cut or compressed, but the stranger’s request had to be heard out loud, in a public place, in daylight. That is why Scene 1 is a market at noon, with two women gossiping about assassins a few feet from a boy who is about to become one.

What I changed, and why

What I kept

The Man in Black’s songs and part of his dialogue with the boy are Lu Xun’s own. They are strange on purpose: Lu Xun told a translator that their meaning is never plain, because they are sung by a strange man and a severed head. I kept them nearly whole, as the one place where the play’s cruelty and grief are spoken directly.

Lines that carry the play

A two-scene play has no room for exposition, so a few lines do the structural work. I also wrote reader’s notes for the English edition so that these lines land for an audience outside China.

Two scenes and a transition played in full view. The cue numbers below come from the master calling sheet.

Forging the Swords is full of things a stage can’t show. A boy cuts off his own head. The head sings in boiling water. Three heads tear at each other in a cauldron, and in the end no one can say which one belonged to the King. Film could turn all of this into spectacle. A small black-box theater can’t.

When the stage can’t show the impossible, what is the least it needs for the audience to believe it happened?

My answer was not to reproduce it, but to let the audience finish it. Each impossible thing is replaced by one simple object:

01

Masks and shadows

Every head on stage is a mask. It falls, is kissed, is carried off, and finally sinks into the cauldron. The fight inside is never shown, only the shadows of three masks rising and sinking on a scrim. The audience sees objects and shadows, and thinks of death. The less literal the image, the clearer the violence.

On stage Candles out, a red glow inside the cauldron, a splash, boiling that builds, a firefly chase on the scrim, then silence and cold light.

02

One thing, two uses

The whole set is five pieces. Pull the reed screen apart and the market wall becomes the palace’s ceremonial screens. Push the three stalls together and they become the cauldron. Level the tilted slab and it is the throne. There’s no blackout: the consorts and the jester move the pieces as they search for the King. The change of space is part of the story.

On stage Screen, throne, stalls, then the robe, all inside one music cue of 30 seconds or less.

03

One body, two roles

At the end of Scene 1, Meijianchi falls. He is dressed in a brocade robe, and when he gets up, he is the King. Avenger and enemy are played by the same actor, so the audience watches one body killed twice. The Man in Black sings, “a head for a head: two avengers take their own lives.” On this stage, that line stops being only a lyric.

On stage An open-back robe lets the consorts dress him where he lies. He stays still through the whole transition: slow enough to be seen, simple enough to be believed.

Substitution only works when its rules are consistent. Once a mask is a head, it is treated as a head every time it is touched.

I drew the costume designs as ink silhouettes. Each character is one shape, with one defining object and one touch of red. The Man in Black is a narrow black column, the King a wide black cape, and the two consorts trail long, pale hems.

The whole design rests on five pieces of scenery that are rearranged, not replaced. The rule I set when I drew the first ground plans by hand in December 2018 held all the way through: nothing would be built for one scene only.

Four moments

Drawing set

Four A3 sheets drawn in CAD at 1:50: two ground plans dimensioned from the plaster line and center line, a shift plot showing who moves each piece and where, and elevations with materials. Dimensions assume a standard proscenium stage.

I wrote the adaptation, directed it, and designed its set and costumes. Holding all four meant every decision could be made once: a line, a move and a piece of scenery were designed to do the same job.

Cue structure

The cue sheets tie the script to the drawings: a master calling sheet for the stage manager, plus lighting, sound and deck lists. The performers run the transition themselves, in character.

25

Lighting cues

16

Sound cues

9

Deck cues

Three problems from the rehearsal room, each one a test of whether substitution could hold.

Next time I would give more time to the songs, which in this production were close to recitation. Lu Xun wrote them to be strange, and I think they could carry more of the play’s cruelty and grief.

• Playscript · English (PDF)
• Playscript · Chinese original (PDF)
• Drawing set · A3 (PDF)
• Cue sheets (PDF)

Adapted from Lu Xun, 《故事新编 · 铸剑》 (Old Tales Retold). The script is for reading only.