1 00:00:05,000 --> 00:00:06,770 At first, there is only a sound. 2 00:00:07,750 --> 00:00:10,790 A person on a rooftop keeps crying out: ‘Ah.’ 3 00:00:11,290 --> 00:00:14,670 No explanation. No slogan. No demand. 4 00:00:15,330 --> 00:00:22,270 The Howler on the Rooftop was presented at P4 Theater on January 2, 2021, as a one-time performance. 5 00:00:22,930 --> 00:00:27,110 In it, this unclaimed sound becomes the most crowded thing in the room. 6 00:00:27,590 --> 00:00:31,870 Liu Du searches for the source because it will not let him sleep, work, or remain alone with his own ambition. 7 00:00:32,170 --> 00:00:35,490 When he finally reaches the rooftop, he does not meet an answer. 8 00:00:36,250 --> 00:00:39,163 He meets a person whose voice refuses to become a sentence. 9 00:00:40,403 --> 00:00:42,553 That should leave the sound open. 10 00:00:43,273 --> 00:00:45,493 Instead, everyone rushes to close it. 11 00:00:45,853 --> 00:00:48,653 A worker says the Howler cries for workers. 12 00:00:49,473 --> 00:00:55,153 A painter claims art. A musician claims music. A writer claims literature. A lawyer claims the law. 13 00:00:55,633 --> 00:01:00,173 The neighbor calls it a nuisance. The police call it a disturbance. A reporter calls it a headline. 14 00:01:00,693 --> 00:01:01,933 The voice has not changed. 15 00:01:02,513 --> 00:01:03,453 The listeners have. 16 00:01:04,313 --> 00:01:04,985 Each uses it as a mirror. 17 00:01:06,225 --> 00:01:08,495 This is the trap at the center of the play. 18 00:01:08,595 --> 00:01:14,515 A sound without words appears available to everyone, so everyone assumes it belongs to them. 19 00:01:14,955 --> 00:01:17,075 They do not ask what the Howler needs. 20 00:01:17,715 --> 00:01:20,835 They give the howl a meaning that confirms their own position. 21 00:01:21,555 --> 00:01:24,035 Listening becomes a way of speaking through someone else. 22 00:01:24,595 --> 00:01:27,135 Then the city does what it knows how to do. 23 00:01:27,775 --> 00:01:32,475 It classifies the voice, publicizes it, worships it, and tries to silence it. 24 00:01:32,515 --> 00:01:37,395 What it cannot do is remain beside the voice without turning it into something useful. 25 00:01:38,215 --> 00:01:40,837 Even sympathy can become another way of taking possession. 26 00:01:42,077 --> 00:01:45,447 The production process makes this harder, not easier. 27 00:01:46,507 --> 00:01:52,427 P4U brought strangers together through a short rehearsal process, while the 3P group recorded interviews and reactions around the work. 28 00:01:52,987 --> 00:01:54,627 The surviving accounts do not agree. 29 00:01:55,047 --> 00:01:58,007 Some participants loved the freedom and the people they met. 30 00:01:58,327 --> 00:02:02,787 Others described confusion, insecurity, pressure, or the wish to leave. 31 00:02:03,287 --> 00:02:06,247 One participant called the project more an action than a play. 32 00:02:06,707 --> 00:02:12,757 Another asked whether repeated demands for improvisation really gave people with different experience an equal chance to speak. 33 00:02:13,997 --> 00:02:17,147 That disagreement is not a flaw to edit out. 34 00:02:17,667 --> 00:02:19,347 It is the second howl. 35 00:02:20,027 --> 00:02:22,947 The stage asks what happens to a voice with no language. 36 00:02:23,627 --> 00:02:30,107 The archive asks what happens to a voice that has language, has been recorded, and still may not change the next decision. 37 00:02:30,627 --> 00:02:34,098 A microphone can preserve dissent. It cannot, by itself, answer it. 38 00:02:35,338 --> 00:02:39,808 By the end, the howl is no longer securely attached to one body. 39 00:02:40,368 --> 00:02:41,648 It passes through the company. 40 00:02:42,608 --> 00:02:43,948 Violence does not settle its meaning. 41 00:02:44,728 --> 00:02:46,988 The sound remains because the problem remains. 42 00:02:47,608 --> 00:02:50,528 The real question is not: What does the Howler represent? 43 00:02:51,128 --> 00:02:55,674 Can a community let a voice remain someone else’s before turning it into everyone’s symbol? 44 00:02:56,915 --> 00:02:58,765 A voice needs more than visibility. 45 00:02:59,345 --> 00:03:02,165 It needs a listener who can resist speaking for it. 46 00:03:02,205 --> 00:03:10,365 If listening is real, something after the listening must be allowed to change: a rehearsal, a rule, a relationship, or the right to leave. 47 00:03:10,925 --> 00:03:12,745 Otherwise the voice is not heard. 48 00:03:13,185 --> 00:03:14,219 It is only used.