By XING YUHAO

Title: The Book of Laughing and Forgetting: Selected Works by Liang Zuo
Chief Editor: Wang Shuo
Publisher: Huayi Publishing House
Pages: 329
First Edition: January 2002
Price: 20 yuan

THE scenario of celebrities, flash bulbs popping, and the press at the launching of a "small book" is rare, even in Chinese publishing circles, accustomed as they are to hype. Liang Zuo, whose works comprise this feted book, was never the subject of such an event. The lavish publicity given to Liang's works seems little more than an excuse for a gathering of stars and personalities, as the media's attention is on who is talking, rather than what they are actually talking about. Only the stars themselves truly know the significance of the few, fine print characters on the title page of the book, "We have all benefited from his life at one time or another."

From his heavenly vantage point, where he should certainly be, Liang Zuo must be familiar with such a scenario. During his life, he attended many of his celebrity friends' autobiography launches, albeit in the background, while the stars he had made stood at the center of the media spotlight. As a playwright, he knew he would never be as famous as the actors in his works, and as a comedy playwright, he had grown used to awkwardness and embarrassment, born of rejection by the arts establishment.

As in other parts of the world, comedy commands a majority audience in China, but there is a difference in attitude towards it in that comedy has never been acknowledged by mainstream art circles in China. In traditional Chinese theatrical productions, comic characters are known as the "chou jue," or ugly roles. An actor or actress in serious theatrical productions may be hailed as an "artist" after playing just a few roles, but it is a different matter for comedic roles.

From the traditional Chinese viewpoint, folk opera, cross talk and other folk performing arts have long been held in contempt. Although Peking Opera managed to win the recognition and favor of the upper classes, the social status of its actors and actresses was still low. The "ugly role," the lowest of all theatrical roles, has always been utterly despised, along with cross talk -- a form of comedy born on the street that smacks of the lower classes.

Upon the founding of new China, folk arts, such as folk opera and cross talk, underwent a period of recovery, but prejudice towards comedy remained, and many comedic actors and actresses switched to more serious roles after achieving a measure of fame. Consequently the creation of comedy stagnated and audiences became bored with the repetition of low-brow, well-worn comic stunts.

On a more serious level, audiences were less inclined to be lenient towards the hint of anything that could be interpreted as defamatory to a particular person. This further diluted Chinese comedy's social satire and critical content, and the dulling of this sharp edge did not bode well for its future survival.

Despite public opinion being largely in its favor, Chinese comedy continued to decline, owing to various factors. It was at the time when actors and actresses were forsaking comedy in their droves that Liang Zuo arrived on the scene with his works, and proved himself a shot in the arm to the ailing art of Chinese comedy. In the 1980s, Liang's cross talks -- Thoughts in Front of a Tiger, Top News, and The Theft Company - re-established the reputation of cross talk among Chinese audiences. He later began creating TV comedy, and produced China's first sitcom, I Love My Home.

Liang Zuo's comedic style is unique, as he was hypersensitive to the comedy that occurs in everyday life, and that his own brand of humor amplified. In addition to bringing laughter and hilarity, his comedies also left the audience with food for thought. In Top News, his humorous portrayal of various reactions to the rumor that Tian'anmen Square was to be converted into a free market at the time when China had just entered the market economy, characterized vividly the contrasting mentalities of differing social echelons. The Theft Company, his depiction of thieves organizing themselves into a formal company and following a point-by-point report and approval procedure that often resulted in the loss of thieving opportunities, satirized incisively the spreading problem of bureaucracy, and touched a chord with the majority of its audience. The sitcoms, I Love My Home and New 72 Tenants, focused their comic edge on the outlook on life and sense of values of two different urban cultures, those of Beijing and Shanghai.

Liang Zuo brought laughter to the people, but stood apart from his comedies. "He picked out the flaws and morbidities of our everyday lives too common to merit attention, twiddled with and eventually made jokes out of them, sometimes to the extent of causticity. This was the time when a serious and silent Liang Zuo stood before us," one of his friends so described him.

Being serious and silent while also being humorous and conversational were the two sides of Liang Zuo. Many of his friends have seen him walking amid crowds looking melancholy. "I sometimes write until the small hours, when there is silence all around me, and suddenly feel an overwhelming sense of desolation," Liang Zuo once said to his friends. Did this loneliness come from his awareness of contemporary social trends, or from his knowledge that his efforts as a single comedy writer could make little difference? No one knows.

His longing to be a novelist predetermined a tragic ending for Liang Zuo. "Sooner or later, I will write novels," he once said. His unprecedented success within comedy circles did not satisfy him, and it is tragic that China's greatest comedy playwright could not extricate himself from the temporal confinements of his time. In his view, writing novels would put him in the main stream of literature, as to him comedy had merely been an experimental dalliance.

The greater his success in comedy creation, the stronger Liang's desire to write novels became, and he was brimming with ideas. He decided on several occasions to give up writing comedy, but continued nonetheless. It was probably the editor's respect for Liang Zuo's innermost desire that prompted him to place several of his short stories in prominent positions within The Book of Laughing and Forgetting, despite the fact that, in the absence of his comedic inspiration, these stories lack substance. Several of his works on comedy creation are, however, thought-provoking. "These are not the best of Liang's works, as he was deprived of the time necessary to get to write his best," is the comment of Liu Zhenyun, a noted writer. This was indeed the expectation of both Liang and his readers.

Liang once said that a fortuneteller had told him that if he could live past the age of 43, he would have another 43 years of life. It was almost as if he had been hit by this oracle when, in 2001, he died suddenly at his home at the age of 43, and all his great expectations along with him.

This sad event further endorses the adage that the line between tragedy and comedy is truly very fine.