“On the contrary, most have not yet begun.”
“A pwè,” began the Captain before they were out the door, “is uniquely Burmese, and I might even say Mandalayan; here the art is at its finest. There are many reasons to hold a pwè, for births or for deaths, for namings, when Burmese girls get their first ear piercing, when young men become monks, when they stop being monks, when pagodas are dedicated. Or even nonreligious reasons: if one wins a lucky bet, builds a house or even digs a well, when there is a good harvest, a boxing match, when a fire-balloon is released. Anything else you can think of. A propitious event, and a man holds a pwè.”
They were walking down the road in the direction of the canal Edgar had visited that morning with Khin Myo. “Actually,” said the Captain, “I am surprised that we didn’t see a pwè when we drove through town this morning. The driver probably knew about them and tried to avoid them. People will sometimes set them up in the middle of the road, completely halting traffic. It’s one of the administrative problems we’ve inherited from the Burmese. During the dry season, there may be dozens of pwè throughout the city. And on nights like tonight, when the sky is clear, they are especially popular.”
They turned a corner. Down the street, they could see lights, movement. “There is one!” exclaimed Khin Myo, and Nash-Burnham, “Yes, we are lucky, lucky indeed. We have a saying that there are but two types of Englishmen in Burma, those who love the pwè and those who can’t bear it. Since the first evening of my arrival, when sleepless with excitement, I took to the streets to explore and found myself at the edge of a yôkthe pwè, a puppet drama, I have fallen in love with the art.”
They were approaching the lights, and Edgar could see a wide crowd of people seated on mats in the middle of the road. These were arranged around an empty patch of earth and a thatched structure. In the center of the empty plot stood a pole. Around the pole, flames flickered in concentrically arranged earthenware pots, lighting the faces of the first row of spectators.
They stood at the edge of the crowd of seated families who looked up at the new arrivals. There was much chattering, and one man shouted something toward a large house behind the shack. Khin Myo answered him. “They want us to stay,” she said.
“Ask him what is being performed,” said Nash-Burnham.
Khin Myo spoke again, and the man answered at length.
“It is the story of the Nemi Zat,” she said.
“Wonderful!” The Captain stomped his cane on the ground with pleasure. “Tell him we will stay for a moment, but that we wish to take our visitor to a yôkthe pwè, so we cannot stay here till the end.”
Khin Myo spoke again. “He understands,” she said.
A servant emerged with two chairs and set them down on the outskirts of the crowd. Nash-Burnham spoke to her directly. When she brought another chair, he offered it to Khin Myo. They sat.
“It looks as though they haven’t begun,” said the Captain. “In fact, you can see the dancers still putting on their makeup.” He pointed to a group of women who stood by a mango tree applying thanaka to their faces.
A little boy ran out into the center of the circle and lit a cheroot from one of the flames in the earthenware pots.
“That circular space is the stage,” said Nash-Burnham. “The Burmese call it the pwè-wang–”
“Pwè-waing,” corrected Khin Myo.
“Sorry, pwè-waing, and the branch in the center is the pan-bin, am I correct, Ma Khin Myo?” She smiled. He continued. “The Burmese sometimes say it represents a forest, but I have a feeling that it sometimes only serves to keep the audience back. In any case, most of the dancing will take place within the pwè-waing”
“And the earthenware pots?” asked Edgar. “Is there any significance to them?”
“Not as far as I know. They light the stage if the moon is not enough, and provide a constant fire for cheroot-lighting.” He laughed.
“What is the subject of the play?”
“Oh, it varies widely. There are many types of pwè. There is the ahlu pwè, a pwè sponsored by a rich man to commemorate a religious festival or the entry of his son into the monastery. They are usually the best, as he can afford to hire the finest actors. Then there are the subscription pwè, when a member of a neighborhood will collect money from others and pool it to hire a pwè company, then an a–yein pwè, a dance performance, then the kyigyin pwè, a free performance offered by an actor or company trying to make their name famous. And then of course the yôkthe pwè, puppets, which I promise you we will find this evening. If that is not enough to confuse you—please correct me if I make any errors, Ma Khin Myo”—“You are doing very well, Captain”—“there is the zat pwè, or real story, a religious play that tells one of the stories of the Buddha’s lives. There are as many of these as the Buddha had incarnations: five hundred and ten, although only ten are usually performed, the so-called Zatgyi Sebwe, dramas about how the Buddha overcame each of the deadly sins. That is what is playing tonight: the Nemi Zat is the fifth,” “Fourth,” “Thank you Khin Myo, the fourth Zatgyi Sebwe. Khin Myo, would you like to explain the plot?” “No, Captain, I am very much entertained listening to you speak.” “Well, then I see I must be careful in what I say…I hope you are not bored, Mr. Drake?”
“No, not at all.”
“Well, we won’t stay for more than an hour, and the pwè will go until dawn. It can take up to four days to complete…In any case, you must know the plot, everyone here does already, these are only retellings of the same story.” The Captain paused to think. “This one is about Prince Nemi, one of the Buddha’s incarnations, who is born into a long line of Burmese kings. As a young man, Prince Nemi is so pious that the spirits decide to invite him to see heaven. One moonlit night, perhaps very much like tonight, they send a chariot down to earth. I can only imagine the awe of Prince Nemi and his people as they watch the chariot descend, and fall before it, trembling with fear. The Prince boards it, and it disappears, leaving only the moon. The chariot takes Nemi first to the heavens where the nats live—nats are Burmese folk spirits, even good Buddhists believe they are everywhere—and then to Nga-yè, the underworld where the serpents called nagas dwell. At last he reluctantly returns to his world, to share the wonders he has seen. The finale is quite sad: it was the tradition of the kings that when they grew old and sensed that death was near, they left their homes and traveled into the desert to die as hermits. And so one day, Nemi, like his forefathers before him, wanders into the mountains to die.”
There was a long silence. Edgar could see the dancers packing away the thanaka and straightening their hta mains.
“It is perhaps my favorite story,” said Nash-Burnham. “Sometimes I wonder if I love it so because it reminds me of myself, of what I have seen…although there is a difference.”
“What is that?” asked Edgar.
“When I return from the plains of heaven and Nga-yè, no one will believe my words.”
The night was hot, but Edgar felt a shiver through his body. About them, the crowd had grown silent, as if they too were listening to the Captain. But one of the dancers had arrived onstage.
Edgar was immediately taken by her beauty, her dark eyes exaggerated by the heavy thanaka on her face. She was thin and looked perhaps fourteen, and she stood in the center of the pwè-waing, waiting. Although Edgar hadn’t seen them when he had arrived, a group of musicians was seated on the opposite side of the pwè: a small ensemble, drums, cymbals, a horn, a bamboo instrument he couldn’t identify, and the stringed instrument he had seen in Rangoon—it was called a saung, Khin Myo told him, twelve strings strung on a boatlike frame. They began, softly at first, like a tentative slip into water, until the man with the bamboo instrument began to play, and a song rose up over the pwè-waing.