Is a text supposed to die?
This is the question that probed my mind as I exited the Merrick Barn, where I attended the Johns Hopkins Theatre’s recent production of Christopher Chen’s Passage: a variation on E.M. Forster’s novel A Passage to India. Despite having never read A Passage to India, my skeletal understanding of the novel’s plot is that it’s about the tension between Britain and India during the former’s colonial rule over the latter. This helped me identify the chief difference between Passage and its muse. The play never mentions “Britain” or “India”; instead, the places are named Country X and Country Y (with the occasional arbitrary allusion to Country Z).
The rest of the play can be abbreviated as such: F (Finnigan Keane) and Q (Kate Ketelhohn) are “Country Y-ers” in Country X who have different approaches to playing the tourist in a foreign land. F is wary of imposing on the natives’ culture as exemplified through his offer to leave the temple when he finds the Country X native D (Qiushi (Chris) Tian) worshipping there. F is characterized as awe-struck and reverent toward Country X, yet this attitude is questioned when his praises of the country’s famous cave turn out to be false and he betrays his relationship with D.
Q — on the other hand — has an equal fixation with Country X, but she’s less cognizant of her status as a visitor in another country. She often makes ignorant statements that she tries to backtrack, such as calling Country X-ers unwelcoming toward Country Y-ers. Q’s empty praise of Country X is epitomized when she attempts to shoot D after he guided her — per her request — through the cave. F was revealed to fear the cave due to the hallucinogenic effect it seemed to have on Country Y-ers, which is what spurs Q to shoot at D. The throughline of the play is the prevalence of xenophobia along with the hopeless wish for an “ideal tourist” who, in the face of conflict, will ultimately remain loyal to their homeland.
Scanning over this summary, it’s unclear whether I described the plot of a play or the steps to a mathematical proof. This facetious comparison outlines the most tragic trait of Passage: It’s too confusing. Similar to how Q claims Country X-ers treat Country Y-ers, Passage becomes a variation that — by ineffectually attempting to remain forever relevant — alienates toward those unfamiliar with the original text.
Even taking notes during the performance, I missed points that seemed key to world-building because they were underdeveloped and rarely mentioned. There was some political conflict over the imprisonment of a child for theft. He only stole batteries, but according to the host country’s strict laws, he nonetheless had to be punished to the severest extent. This, in turn, is what sparked the chaotic protests that backdropped the entire play. With a flurry of letters flying by my ears, the specifics and significance of this detail (such as which country this took place in and which country the child was from) was lost on me.
The cast did the best with what they had. Across the roster, everyone boasted expert body language which often helped to clarify the script they were forced to speak. When appropriate and necessary, they all tied fitting emotion to their dialogue which further illuminated the meaning behind the convoluted text.
The only aspect where some performances fell short was in moving the play away from obfuscation was the delivery. Rather than replicating an organic conversation, they engaged in rote recitation, waiting to hear their partner in dialogue stop making noise so that they could seamlessly continue the racket. It was like watching an aggressive tennis match where both players tirelessly volley the ball from the front half of the court, never allowing the relief of the ball hitting the ground; the audience becomes exhausted, helplessly swiveling their heads to and fro, their minds rattled and eyes straining.
It was during the talkback after the performance that one audience member said something that inspired this article: “I don’t believe in timelessness. A play should die.” This was in response to one actor suggesting that the choice to utilize letters rather than specifics allowed the text to transcend both context and time. I found myself on the side of the audience member, asking the overarching question: Was this truly a transcension or instead a gross negligence?
History is context. A historical event cannot be separated from what came before it and what surrounded it. In turn, every piece of literature — prose, poetry, play — is itself a historical event, considering that it is a product of the epoch during which it was formed.
The question: “Is a text supposed to die?” has a more complicated answer than “yes” or “no.” It should not die in the literal sense — meaning that it should not cease to be performed or studied. However, if it shouldn’t die, then texts should surely have an expiration date. After the expiration date — when the context has passed — it should be the responsibility of whoever is engaging with the text to acknowledge that the piece has become anachronistic or removed from its time. For instance, if someone were to read Jonathan Swift’s essay A Modest Proposal today without considering its embedded explanation or recognizing the historical context, then they may only question why this man is so staunchly advocating for the cannibalism of Irish babies, and the essay’s original irony is lost.
Passage’s choice to remove the historical context of Britain and India from the play is a self-hindering insult to the audience member and reader. Chen may have believed that his purposeful overgeneralization of the plot was a small price to pay that rendered Forster’s work more accessible and newly applicable. This is not the case.
Any reader who would wish to apply the story of A Passage to India to modern times can do so without Britain and India becoming Country X or Country Y. They would simply have to recognize that because the context has passed, the specifics are going to be slightly different, but the message still stands, like old wine in a new bottle. On the flip side, using letters instead of specifics will not suddenly inspire the apathetic reader to apply the story to modern times.
Removing the play’s message from the specific historical context supports the dangerous increase in anti-intellectualism. By offering this alternative, readers of Passage versus A Passage to India are enabled in not learning history. When people are not forced to consider and learn from history, they are prone to repeat it. This creates a Catch-22: Passage warns against Country X-Country Y relationships by removing the context to make it timeless; however, by doing this, readers lose the history and become more inclined to repeat what they were warned against.
Through no fault of the cast or those who worked to produce the University Theatre’s performance of Passage, I ultimately exited the Merrick Barn confused — not confusion hinting at curiosity or a deeper, philosophical questioning of the current state of the world, but simply a “What was that trying to say?” confusion. If one good thing came from my first viewing of Passage, it was a Barnes & Noble e-receipt for Forster’s novel A Passage to India, which will be shipped to me soon.
