Sha Yexin on ‘The Conscience of Hu Yaobang’

Source: Sinosphere, NYT (11/19/15)
Q. and A.: Sha Yexin on ‘The Conscience of Hu Yaobang’
By Vanessa Piao

With the Nov. 20 centennial of the birth of the Communist Party chief and political reformer Hu Yaobang, the playwright Sha Yexin felt it was time to write about the man he reveres — and who personally approved his application for party membership.

Mr. Sha, 76, has long combined theater and politics. He is a former director of the Shanghai People’s Theater and has written a series of acclaimed but controversial plays, including “If I Were Real” (1979), satirizing party privileges, and “I Am Chairman Mao’s Bitch” (1991), about Jiang Qing and her husband, Mao Zedong. He is a signatory of Charter 08 a manifesto for greater political rights, and is vice president of the Independent Chinese PEN Center. Many of his works remain banned in China because they touch on politically sensitive subjects, including the 1989 military suppression of protests in and around Tiananmen Square, which were precipitated by Mr. Hu’s death.

In his new play, “The Conscience of Hu Yaobang,” which has been published in Hong Kong but not in mainland China, Mr. Sha depicts Mr. Hu’s efforts to rehabilitate the millions of people purged in Mao’s Anti-Rightist Campaign and the Cultural Revolution. It closes with Mr. Hu’s own fall from power in 1987. In an interview, Mr. Sha discussed his encounters with Mr. Hu, the support he received from Mr. Hu’s son and whether the play will ever be staged in China.

Q. Why Hu Yaobang?

A. Comrade Yaobang is an outstanding figure in China’s contemporary history. He is also a figure who moved me. That was the first reason. The second reason is, I have a connection with him. He approved my application to join the Communist Party.

I first came into contact with him after “If I Were Real” was staged. The play was very controversial. The central government held a meeting on the play [in 1980] and Hu delivered a report. He said I was a Cao Yu or Shakespeare for contemporary times and praised my talent. But after the meeting, he suggested I revise the play.

I wouldn’t listen to him and even wrote an article titled “Che Dan.” I put quote marks around “dan” to separate the characters. [Combined, the two characters can mean “speaking nonsense.” Separated they mean “speaking of a low season.”] I was speaking about a low season for the arts. Following the meeting, there were fewer works reflecting reality and criticizing official privilege. I wrote that this had something to do with the meeting.

In 1985, I was chosen to be director of the People’s Arts Theater in Shanghai. But if you want to be director of the People’s Arts Theater, you have to be a party member. I wasn’t a party member. I submitted my application. But the city authorities wouldn’t approve it. They accused me of attacking Hu Yaobang. “Hu Yaobang said kind words to you. And you said he was speaking nonsense!”

Some party members at the theater then wrote to Hu Yaobang about this matter. Comrade Yaobang wrote back on the letter “If this comrade is qualified, he should be allowed to join the party.” This solved everything. And he said of “Speaking of a Low Season” that no one should make connections between the article and him. He was truly liberal-minded.

Back then I had a very shallow understanding of Comrade Yaobang. But my views on politics and society have deepened. Looking back, I think he was truly great.

Q. In 1980, your play “Mayor Chen Yi” was performed at Zhongnanhai, the Chinese leadership compound in Beijing. Did you meet Mr. Hu there?

A. He came onstage after the play, but I’d already left for an interview in Anhui. He looked for me, asking “Where is Ye Xinsha?” He got my name wrong. If he’d been emperor, I’d have had to change my name.

Q. How did you get started on the Hu Yaobang play?

A. I wasn’t that emotional before I started writing. But once I started, I was doing interviews and reading documents, and I wept as I read and wrote.

I contacted Dehua [Hu Yaobang’s third son] when I was thinking of writing this because I couldn’t have done it without his support. Dehua readily agreed. I said I’d like to go to Beijing to do interviews. Dehua arranged for me to interview three [of Mr. Hu’s] secretaries.

First, the secretaries would be devoted to their boss and remember everything he said and did. Second, they had an emotional connection. They weren’t just describing what happened. So I got very good material from them. So when Dehua tried to arrange interviews with people like Hu Qili [a member of the party’s Politburo in the 1980s], I said please don’t bother, because I already had good material from people who were closest to him.

Q. Why did you decide to write about Mr. Hu rehabilitating people who had been persecuted during the Anti-Rightist Campaign and Cultural Revolution?

A. More people were affected by Mr. Hu’s rehabilitation campaign than by the emancipation of slaves in the United States. Its significance lies, first, in the number of people involved and, second, in the injustice they suffered.

Third, what happened to these people had been kept secret. In the United States, there are public records on how many slaves were traded. But our dead still tell no tales. What Hu did was rare in human history. So his overturning of political cases was well received in China and abroad. And he took risks in doing this. No one else dared.

Plus, his actions make for good drama.

Q. Why did you end the play with the party meetings of 1987 where Hu was forced from power?

A. I went to his [Hu Dehua’s] home in Beijing. I said “Dehua, I have to ask you a question. We have to be honest. Do we want to write about the meetings?”

“Of course!” he said. So I said, “Then, of course, I’ll write about them!”

He was very happy. This was a matter of principle. The meetings could reveal the political attitudes of people back then.

“The Conscience of Hu Yaobang.” What is “conscience”? When we praise someone, we say he has a conscience. When we curse him, we say he has no conscience. The meetings are there to dramatize people without a conscience.

Forcing a good person like that to resign, causing him to weep outside on the steps. You shouldn’t let good people shed tears. Or you have no conscience.

Q. In your play, Deng Xiaoping suddenly shows up at a meeting. But in fact Deng wasn’t there. Why did you add him?

A. The play is a work of art. So it can include things that didn’t happen but could have. It’s in keeping with Deng’s personality to catch people off guard. He was determined to bring Hu down. So he takes charge of the meetings. It was totally possible. Not to mention its dramatic effect.

Q. Has Hu Dehua or other relatives told you what they think of the play?

A. No.

Q. In 1994, you proposed three “reactionary slogans.” The first is, “Socialism should serve art and literature; art and literature should serve the people”—in contrast with President Xi Jinping’s speech last year that art and culture should serve socialism. How does your play serve the people?

A. It can lift people’s spirits. For example, what should a Communist Party cadre be like? He should be like Hu Yaobang. It can encourage people to consider what makes a good leader. Those who persecute people like Hu Yaobang are bad.

Q. Will the play be published or performed in China?

A. I doubt it can be published in the mainland. How could they place Deng Xiaoping or Deng Liqun [a powerful critic of Mr. Hu] in this situation? And I doubt it can be staged. Though it hasn’t been explicitly banned.

Q. Why does Hu Yaobang remain a sensitive subject?

A. They shouldn’t have forced him to resign. It wasn’t a normal dismissal for the party.

Didn’t Xi Jinping’s father [Xi Zhongxun, a close ally of Mr. Hu] say at the time, “You’re forcing the emperor to abdicate?”

It was a coup. It was wrong.

Follow Vanessa Piao on Twitter @VanessaPiao.