It's like "The Spirit"
Romeo Castro.
Is there heaven and hell in this world? Or is it, while it is the most extreme illusion of "good" and "evil" that humankind has given us, that it really exists in our world at the same time? I think that this so-called paradise and hell are indeed an illusion in human life, and that is the truth. I think that a person comes to the world with constant refinement; with constant grinding; with constant experience and experience of all kinds of good or bad, or with more vagueness in the grey zone; with constant spiralling back into the world's desires; with constant trapping into self-made traps... eventually to find an answer that belongs to himself, or to the sense that it does not exist.
And what happens when a man dies? Will the world of death be heaven or hell? Is it true that our place of rest is to be judged by an unknown god on the basis of the past of our lives, and ultimately to one of them? If so, what are they like?
In this work, Castro seems to have given him the expression of "Hell" - death is hell-related, and death is everyone's established destiny, it is unstoppable, it has the power to devour and destroy everything, and it is the power to make everything, whatever it is, stop.
I'm very impressed with two scenes in this work.
The scene was that, when a group of children were locked in a glass box, a giant black cloth was covered up, the children seemed to be panicking and afraid, and began to hit the unknown with a picoton toy, but, of course, in vain, the black cloth would fall, as if death had come, and their instincts had aroused much thought - why would a man fear death? Even children who are yet to understand, or because they are children, are not restricted by symbols such as scripts, acting, external consciousness, etc., so that they have the most animal expression. It's something other adult actors don't have in this work, or it's impossible.
And it reminds me of Bill Viola's time-delaying audio-visual device, Life raft. It documents the truest reaction of 20 strangers to sudden "floods". Everyone will be afraid and consciously trying to resist death. At the same time, this "death threat" brings them closer to each other, who are not yet known and caring, because of the feelings and feelings of a common "person". Prejudice, class, wealth, race, gender awareness and so on are meaningless in the face of "death". Everyone returns to the "persons" themselves, and people will end up being "peoples".
I thought of myself again. Am I also afraid of death? Why don't I want to die? Likewise, since all people are "born to death", why am I still alive? What is my answer to this ancient philosophical question? At that point, I remembered that my friends had asked me this question and answered it themselves - I was still alive because I didn't want to die. And I don't want to die because I think it's a shame. If my life had stopped at this moment, it would have been a pity that I had not done it in the past, but that I might have done it in the future, and that I could have done it in the present. This feeling of "pity" has been driving me to think more, to feel more, to experience more, to feel more, to feel more clearly. I don't want to miss this opportunity, I think, since fate has guided me to be a human being.
To support me as much as possible and to better live.
Another scene was a piano burning.
I don't know why, I don't know when, I'm particularly fond of burning, the state of burning - a state of dumping and silence, a state of "self" that I always fantasize about and never realized. I feel that the flames burn out the shackles in my heart - those I give myself or those imposed on me from outside. However, when I look at it for a long time, I feel calm and empty. I can focus on the moment, to feel the time passing through the flames, and I will not think that this "time passing" is a pity and a guilt.
Finally, I want to go back to death itself. When we face isolation in real life, especially as we grew from childhood to age in an environment where China avoided talking about death, I think whether we live in encounters, separate from life, or separate from death, it would be as if in this work we were all "killing" and being "killed" as if we were able to find out that something could not be held together, and that it might be the most perfect imperfect at the beginning, and perhaps there would be less entanglement, pain and confusion.
The weekly "Shows" column is dedicated to the free writing of participants following the P4 Theater screening, where all ideas and feelings can be freely published.