Fong allowed that to seep into him as Fu Tsong had taught him to do. Then he checked another of her citations at the bottom of the page – Act IV, Scene II, line 60 – Othello says:
“Where either I must live or bear no life,
The fountain from the which my current runs
Or else dries up; to be discarded thence!
Or keep it as a cistern for foul toads
To knot and gender in!”
Fong then looked at Fu Tsong’s comment beside these lines: This guy really has a thing about toads. Toads “gendering” together. He should have this checked by a specialist and soon.
Fong found his hand touching her words on the page and a profound sadness descended upon him. He had managed to forget that about her. She had been funny. So very funny.
He flipped the page and was confronted with a long section of Fu Tsong’s writing that seemed to have no reference to particular lines: We all die. Some are taken by time and care. Others by a murderer’s hands. But are we never the cause of our own demise? Even of our own murder? Can life never get so horrid, the pain of living so great – that death is the better way? That the pain of the here and now is greater than any fear of the hereafter.
It is my job as an actress to make the most compelling character that I possibly can within the constraints of keeping away from eccentricity. A character that is lost in the darkness is less compelling than one that sits in the light. Let us grant whatever possible knowledge Desdemona could have and work from that point.
Is it possible that Desdemona is in so much pain that she causes her own death?
Is it possible that her love for Othello is so profound that there is almost none of herself left when she is with him – that it would be better to die than be so consumed by her love for him? Is it possible that Desdemona is as frightened of her love for Othello as I am of my love for Fong?
When he looked up he could hardly see. He knew he was crying but he didn’t know when his tears had started. He brushed them aside and was surprised to see Tuan Li standing over him. He didn’t know what to do – so he apologized.
“For what?” asked Tuan Li. “You are Fu Tsong’s husband, yes?”
He nodded. She held out a handkerchief. He took it and wiped away his tears then went to hand it back but didn’t know if that was proper. The scent from the handkerchief was on his face.
“Is that her copy of the play?” she asked tentatively and reached for her handkerchief.
“One of them,” he said.
“Did the great Fu Tsong like this play?”
“She did. Very much, although she had many questions about it, but then again she had many questions about all the plays she acted in.”
“What troubled her most about Desdemona?”
“The woman’s belief in being saved. I don’t think she ever found the equivalent in herself to the Christian concept of being saved.”
“It is very un-Chinese that idea.”
Fong nodded.
“Do you understand it?”
“No,” Fong said.
Tuan Li smiled sadly at him and said, “Perhaps that is why you are so alone.”
Fong didn’t follow that and was about to say so when Tuan Li was called back to the stage.
Fong watched her and her Othello work the entirety of the scene again. This time Tuan Li took volition and defended herself brilliantly against Othello’s attack. But Fong noticed Tuan Li doing something that Fu Tsong had often talked about. He recalled Fu Tsong’s words: “This is not realism, Fong. That’s life. Plays are done in naturalism, that’s art. In realism people deflect anything dangerous that comes at them. It becomes the reason why when I attack you, only later do you think, I should have said this to Fu Tsong or that to Fu Tsong. It is because you weren’t able to stay present during my completely justifiable attacks on your person. You are a civilian after all dear husband. But I am not. I am an artist and I am paid to stay in present tense. Hence I can never deflect anything. Every awful thing you say to me goes in and hurts. That’s how naturalism works. It is the strength of the heart of the actress that allows her to honestly accept the attack, fall, then rise like the phoenix to fight again. Artists exist solely to share their knowledge of the heart – and what an artist does to her heart by forcing it to stay present is as unnatural as what a ballet dancer does to her body.”
Fong turned to the stage and there he saw Tuan Li’s Desdemona doing precisely what Fu Tsong had told him an artist’s job was – accepting the pain of each sledgehammer blow from her Othello, even allowing the possibility that Othello was speaking truths, then falling, then rising to fight again.
Fong wondered where this strength came from. He would have been astounded to hear Tuan Li’s answer to that question: “Faith,” she would have said, “Faith, dear Fong.”
The director stepped forward but before he could open his mouth Tuan Li put a finger to her lips. For the first time in Fong’s memory a Chinese rehearsal room went dead quiet. Tuan Li stared at her Othello and he met her gaze. She was clearly challenging him to find the book upon her features, the pages on which were written the word: Whore. For the barest second Othello faltered beneath the challenge then he turned and spat directly in Tuan Li’s face.
The men in the audience leapt to their feet but Tuan Li didn’t move. She accepted the insult, fell inside herself, then rose and withdrew a handkerchief from her sleeve.
It was only then that Fong saw that it was not the handkerchief that Othello had demanded that she produce. The rest of the audience saw it too and realized that they had been drawn into a clever trap that allowed the play to ratchet up the tension to yet a higher level.
As so often in the presence of art, Fong felt full but humble. He knew he was not capable of fulfilling an artistic endeavour himself but he was grateful, so grateful that there are those who could lead him through the heart’s dark corridors.
The touch of Lily’s hand on his shoulder shocked him back to the present. He snuck a peak at his wristwatch. He had been in the theatre for more than three hours. “My cell phone didn’t ring,” he said.
“I’m not here, Fong, because the office called,” Lily said simply.
After a beat Fong asked, “Why are you here, Lily?”
“No, Fong. The question is why are you here and not at home?”
Fong looked at the stage. Iago had just come on from stage right. Othello pecked Tuan Li on the cheek. She openly mouthed “Good luck” in reference to Iago then walked right past the British actor without acknowledging his presence.
Iago approached Othello with his hand extended. “No hard feelings, I hope.”
Othello took Iago’s hand and held it tight. “Lie better, Gummer. Lie better and don’t ever let me catch you lying. ’Cause you know this play isn’t about a dumb . . .”
Iago hesitated and finally completed Othello’s phrase with the words, “ . . . person whose parentage was at one time native to the African continent.”
“Yeah, that.”
“Well, after all, it’s only a paper moon, isn’t it?”
“Moon looks damn real to me.”
Iago went to speak but no words came out of his mouth.
“What’s that all about?” Lily asked.
“Art,” Fong replied.
Lily didn’t know what to say to that. She shrugged it off and asked again, “What are you doing here, Fong?”
“Watching toads gender each other,” he said.
“Fong!”
“Lily,” Fong said, turning to her, “I don’t know what I’m doing here, but I know I need to be here. I know it.”
Lily sat back in her seat surprised by the intensity of his response. Finally she said, “You are married Fong. You are married to me, not to Fu Tsong.”