Constructing the Alternative: Grass Stage and The Little Society

Abstract

In 2011, at Wuhan University all the seats in the old auditorium were filled with college students for a performance of The Little Society (Xiao shehui) by Grass Stage (Caotai Ban). Before the performance one of the crew made a jesting, yet significant, opening remark: “During the performance, you are encouraged to turn on all communication devices, to converse quietly or loudly with people out side, and to stay in close touch with your daily life in our social theatre.” Then the show began. In one of the scenes, performers in the worker’s uniform were busy carrying bricks onto the stage until there were bricks everywhere being moved by the hurried “workers” while singing a song about an obscure peasant worker:¹

A peasant went to the city to make a living,

And he became a construction worker.

When he moved bricks onto the forty-fourth floor,

He fell down and was crushed.

His countrymen went to the city from afar,

But they could only dig a grave in the suburb.

On the tombstone they wrote his experience in the city.²