Cast:
DA ZHANG - a Legalist and a soldier
XIAO LIU - a Confucian and a public official
LAO TANG- a Daoist and a scholar

Setting: Beginning of 1st century C.E.; Han Dynasty China
(XIAO LIU’s home––A traditional Ancient Chinese courtyard. Looming, luxurious, green bamboo upstage and stage left and right. Wooden fence built in front of the bamboo. One short, medium-sized, three-legged wooden table, big enough to completely hold a traditional weiqi board and two bowls each holding 180 weiqi stones, one set of black and one set of white. A larger bowl of coins also sits on the table. Three short seats––one with a back and no armrests, one with no back and no armrests, one with a back and armrests. DA ZHANG sits on the chair with no back and no armrests. He is wearing plain, traditional clothes. XIAO LIU sits on the chair with a back and armrests. He is wearing silk, bright, detailed clothing that hangs slightly loosely on his body. LAO TANG sits on the chair with a back yet no armrests. He is wearing plain yet slightly loose clothes.)

Act 1

Scene 1: 

DA ZHANG shouts. He has just won a game of weiqi. 
DA ZHANG: I won! I will take my reward, justly and fairly––I apologize to you, and your wife, Xiao Liu. I suppose you won’t get that nice jade vase you’ve been eyeing. Even though you already have many, many, many––
XIAO LIU: You’re right, Da Zhang, I don’t need it. I have enough. Take it. You probably need it, in all honesty, being a soldier and everything.
DA ZHANG: (laughing) Alright Xiao Liu, no need to go there. (He scoops up his prize from the coin bowl.) Lao Tang, you up for another game?

LAO TANG is sitting back in his chair gazing into the bamboo forest

DA ZHANG: Lao Tang! You there?
LAO TANG: (muttering) Always disturbing me and nature, classic Chinese soldier.
DA ZHANG: What was that, Lao Tang? Surely no disrespect regarding me?
LAO TANG: You really should stop hanging onto every breath of mine and listen to the bamboo, the grass, the earth. But yes, I am up for another game.
DA ZHANG: (smiling broadly) Great!

The three clean up the board and prepare for the next game.

DA ZHANG: Alright, I have the black stones. I will start.

Black: Bottom right star point.
White: Top right star point.
Black: Top left star point.
White: Bottom left star point.
The game continues to play out as the men start talking.

DA ZHANG: Ah, I must win this game. I deserve more in my military salary, but the bureaucracy will not give me anymore. Yet I know the public officials are getting more than me, I know that you, Xiao Liu, are getting paid more than me. Do these people not know who’s keeping them safe, who’s making sure they don’t get their throats slit in some coup? Everybody knows the landlords are gathering more and more power as they take more peasant land.

Da Zhang attacks, strategically placing black stones in various places around the white stones. Lao Tang sets down stones guarding his corner stones.

XIAO LIU: Yet all have the opportunity to attain bureaucratic positions––peasants, landlords, even soldiers like yourself. The system is based upon merit, upon potential, upon education. Everybody has something to offer.
DA ZHANG: Right, right, you Confucians and your precious ren. (in a mocking tone) “Everybody is good! Everybody is kind! Everybody has a heart.” Please do not insult my perception.
XIAO LIU: Nobody is insulting your perception, Da Zhang. As you so wisely say, everybody has a heart. In order to function properly, a heart must receive blood from the veins, and it must pump blood through the arteries. You clearly do not understand Confucianism. Listen: a man need only listen to his superiors’ teachings and follow them to grow closer to moral perfection.
DA ZHANG: (sitting back in his chair) Do not condescend to me, Xiao Liu. I may be a guest in your home, and you may be my gracious host, but I will not be insulted.
XIAO LIU: This courtyard you sit in, this home you rest in, the man you sit across from are all built upon wen. Years I have dedicated myself to scholarship, to literature, and the arts. This courtyard was my design, the result of one of my earliest paintings. Had I not sought moral perfection in my studies, you would not be sitting here, playing my weiqi.
DA ZHANG: And while you sit there, how many peasants and soldiers like me are––
LAO TANG: Xiao Liu, stop distracting us from the game. Da Zhang, it is your turn.

Da Zhang turns back to the board. He has lost five stones in careless moves while talking to Xiao Liu.

DA ZHANG: Now how did you…
LAO TANG: I was not focusing on your useless skirmishes about our society. And I took five of your stones. Your turn.
DA ZHANG: Very well, Lao Tang, very well. Come, Xiao Liu, let us focus on the game again. We can always argue, but I cannot lose to Lao Tang now!
XIAO LIU: I am a simple spectator, Da Zhang. You are the one who let Lao Tang take five of your pieces. May you focus and learn not to let this happen again.
DA ZHANG: Very well, Xiao Liu, very well! A well-deserved punishment for a quarrel between friends. Lao Tang, let us see how far your foresight spans!

Lights dim. A pause. 
Lights brighten. Da Zhang appears more frustrated now.

Scene 2:

DA ZHANG: (mumbling) Nothing I can do here, nothing here, and nothing there. He has me trapped…(aloud) Xiao Liu, what are your ideas? I know you have some in that churning head of yours.
XIAO LIU: Now you would like to hear my words?
DA ZHANG: Oh, Xiao Liu, just help your friend here!––Lao Tang’s got me trapped everywhere in just a few turns!
XIAO LIU: I apologize. As Confucius says so wisely, “The relation between superiors and inferiors is like that between the wind and the grass. The grass must bend when the wind blows across it.” All of China bends to this brilliant statement. For you, all the wind I can muster is but a feeble breeze against your stony face.
LAO TANG: If I may, Xiao Liu, your seat has a back. Why do you sit there with a rigid back, shoulders, and neck when you could appreciate the chair you have behind you?
XIAO LIU: Ever since I could think, my parents disciplined me to sit with my back straight. The chair back acts as a temptation, a distraction. It is an unnecessary tool, for a man must learn to stand by himself. Sitting straight scorns that temptation and dependence on its extraneous support.
LAO TANG: But you are not doing anything, you simply sit while we play!
XIAO LIU: It is a way of life, Lao Tang. The quest for moral perfection is ever-present, and the allurement for depravity never stops. It would be virtuous of you to replicate this lifestyle.
LAO TANG: Ah, how could I forget? You are unflagging in your quest, accentuating every opportunity you have to “discipline” yourselves. Even sitting against the back of a chair must be a test, an obstacle for you to gain even more virtue. But where is all of this virtuous teaching originating from––Confucius? Mankind? Your virtue is yet another creation. What lives you Confucians lead.
XIAO LIU: Bold words, Lao Tang. Wherever did you learn to speak this way?
LAO TANG: You forget, Xiao Liu. I am a scholar. While you learn to “grow morally,” I learn to understand the world. And as I understand it more, I perceive more of your philosophy’s faults.
DA ZHANG: (aside, scoffing) Scholars.
XIAO LIU: My skies, you speak as if discipline is not needed. Now what exactly do your Daoist ideals propose?
LAO TANG: Not now, Xiao Liu, not now. I must focus on the game. As you can see, I have lost six white stones while speaking with you.
XIAO LIU: Of course, please. At least you know when to focus on the game, Lao Tang. Am I right, Da Zhang?
DA ZHANG: (guffawing) Yes, yes, Xiao Liu. But on that I must make another point. You told me earlier I needed to focus, and I did, after accepting my punishment of losing five stones. And now, I have taken six stones from Lao Tang, giving me my reward. The nature of this game and its rules demands acute attention from its players, and by punishment under those rules I now have the advantage. Reward and punishment were all I needed, not education.
XIAO LIU: (smirking) What a pit you have dug for yourself! How could you have gained such an advantage without learning from your mistakes and the moves Lao Tang made? Without adopting that sharp, disciplined focus how could you ever have seized your opportunity to take six of Lao Tang’s stones?
DA ZHANG: With every question you ask Xiao Liu, you seem less and less educated. Honestly, what has all that Confucian discipline and education done for you? I did not learn from the moves that I made; the game’s rules taught me. There is no inequality between me and Lao Tang, naming me the inferior and the one who must learn from the superior. As Lao Tang alluded to correctly, for once, you bend to the wind, the teachings of mankind. I bend to the rules and the rules only.
XIAO LIU: But who made those rules? Men, no? In the end are you not learning from the teachings of men who made these same realizations before you did?
DA ZHANG: Questions, questions, questions, you miss the point! (leaning forward on the table) I am evil. My heart is corrupt. All our hearts are twisted. The rules must be followed, for they are correct, from beginning to end, word for word. None of us have the jurisdiction to change the rules.
XIAO LIU: And do you not tire of being the evil one? Of being one who can supposedly never change, as one is by nature stagnant in heart and mind? If humans can adapt to your rewards and punishments, then why can they not adapt their hearts and minds?
DA ZHANG: WE ARE INCAPABLE! Only the law may rule, the ruler its physical instrument to fashion society to its proper shape.
XIAO LIU: It is not the law that rules, but the men who make the law and the men who enforce the law and the men who live under the law. Society is fundamentally man’s construct, man’s world. The law is man’s instrument.
DA ZHANG: If you like questions so much, how about answering a few of mine? How can Confucians judge the nature of man? What keen perception do they have? My lineage is filled with soldiers, men who fought to end the Warring States Era, men who, under the strict hand of the law, reigned in China’s chaos. You say that your courtyard, your home, your weiqi, you are from your years of dedication to literature and the arts. None of these are yours. You would be one miniscule government official in one irrelevant, politically and physically besieged state had it not been for soldiers like me.
XIAO LIU: You soldiers serve your purpose. Legalism promotes essential workers, but as always, your ideology is short-sighted. What philosophy has led China in peace and prosperity for the past two centuries? Confucian-educated officials. History has proven that literary achievement means more than martial achievement. Wen over wu. Scholars over soldiers. Me over you.
DA ZHANG: (bitterly) And now we come to the point. You think you’re better than me. The entire scholar-gentry class thinks it is better than the rest of the country. Yet as you paint your paintings and write your papers, you feast on the food that peasants put on your table. You say that peasants should be respected, but any man or woman toiling in the fields will tell you that what was once their land has been taken by apathetic landlords. They will state that they work relentlessly with no reward. They slave away, eat what little they can gather, and then sleep only to repeat this humiliating cycle again. Two centuries of peace and prosperity? Yes, for the scholar-gentries who stand upon the foundations built by workers tossed to the side once sucked of all life. And why is the scholar-gentry class so powerful? Confucianism––the never-ending to “nurture” ren through education.
XIAO LIU: Under your strict hand, all would suffer. Humans are naturally evil, so I can only think that the punishment would overpower the rewards. Especially after the Warring States Era.
DA ZHANG: And under your hand, inequality would become legitimized to the point where you may live perfect lives, but the peasants and soldiers who built your perfection are stuffed away in some corner of the land so that none of you ever have to lay another eye on their shriveled, decadent forms.
XIAO LIU: (standing up, stiffly) If there is such inequality between you and I, then why do you even sit here, insulting me in my own home?
DA ZHANG: (jumping up) Honestly, I do not know––
LAO TANG: Sit down. There will be no skirmish here today.
DA ZHANG: (angrily) Why?
LAO TANG: Because I am on the brink of defeating you Da Zhang in this game, and quite miserably. And because I wish for us to sit here and discuss for longer in Xiao Liu’s home. Would that be possible, Da Zhang? Xiao Liu? If we could discuss longer?
XIAO LIU: One so close-minded as he cannot be reasoned with.
LAO TANG: But I can. And I have not had my say yet. Let me join in while Da Zhang flails about in a desperate yet hopeless attempt to save the black stones from imminent destruction. Yes?

Silence. Xiao Liu sits down, back straight. Lao Tang plays a piece and sits back. Da Zhang regroups his pieces and reevaluates the board.

DA ZHANG: (grumbling) “Flailing about.” “Imminent destruction.” Hmph.

XIAO LIU: (slightly louder than Da Zhang) “Decadent.” So unequivocally accurate.

Da Zhang grumbles again, shaking his head with his eyes cast intently upon the board. Lights dim.

Scene 3:

Lights brighten, the spotlight on Lao Tang.

LAO TANG: From your arguments, we have seen that humans seem to be not enough. They are lacking in some way or form––corruption, single-mindedness, the list goes on. Education and the law cannot cure these faults, for they themselves are corrupted by human nature. And as I can clearly see from my position, differences in the way men believe society should be ruled only leads to more chaos, even among friends. So, how to salvage ourselves from our current chaos? Well, what are humans part of? Nature. Society is meaningless if we do not go back to our roots. We have had chaos under both Legalism and Confucianism, two philosophies that are heavily focused on how to rule society. Therefore, we must look away from society and at the other resources that we have. And what about the natural world that preceded and will succeed us? Dao, the path of nature, is eternal and the root of all that is natural. Yet it is spontaneous, therefore giving man the leeway to adapt, as it always has. No need to pay attention to artificial constructions of government and education. Nature is always present and all-encompassing; it does not practice Confucian exclusion nor does it claim Legalist tyrannical power over its followers.
XIAO LIU: I apologize, Lao Tang, I must be misunderstanding you. You propose to expurgate chaos with more spontaneity?
DA ZHANG: A fair point he has brought up there, Lao Tang.
LAO TANG: That was foolish positioning, Da Zhang.

Lao Tang leans forward and plucks a black stone off the board, placing it in the amassing pile beside his own stone bowl.

LAO TANG: Please refocus. (to Da Zhang) China’s chaos only originated in the first place because the country became obsessed with each state’s purview and hegemony over others. We had the wrong sort of chaos.
XIAO LIU: Now you are the one being foolish. The wrong chaos? There should be no chaos at all––only peace and order. That is what discipline and culture brings; as you say, nature is ever-changing, which is why it is hostile to mankind.
LAO TANG: Xiao Liu, look around you! We sit in your courtyard, surrounded by the naturally determined bamboo, and yet you still talk of its hostility. You obviously use it to comfort and relax you, no? Is this not an indulgence that your discipline should ignore?
XIAO LIU: So it seems you too have a problem with my home. In fact, I have grown it there to please you, my guests in my home. 
DA ZHANG: (mumbling) More money spent that could be put in the salaries of soldiers like me.
XIAO LIU: Well, as I told Da Zhang (shooting a sharp glare at Da Zhang), if you dislike the way I run my home, then why do you still sit here comfortably in your chair?
DA ZHANG: (guffawing) Because he is enjoying himself too much! This man is full of contradictions! He is meant to practice withdrawal into nature, yet he sits here and actively tries to persuade us to do the same. Social activism does not classify as withdrawal. Let us direct our attention to his profession––a scholar. Not only is his work fundamentally useless to our society, but he throws himself into the Confucian way of life as a profession. Dangerous hypocrites all around us, I say. Hypocrites who dare to believe they know the right path and even stretch to convince others of their folly!
LAO TANG: (scoffs, throws his hands into the air) Me, a hypocrite? I am forced into my profession and my activism because there is no possible way for me to withdraw while the rest of Confucian China distorts the natural world! How I wish I could walk among this land and not see bridges over the rivers, trees mutilated for aesthetics, or real estate, man-made paths crisscrossing all of China! If I could simply sit and watch the abundance of fauna and flora grow around me, then I would be free of corruption! I would very much be what you Legalists search for, Da Zhang, but better. Reduced to my base form, I would not pursue the follies that have led mankind to its disgraced state now, but I would be as pure as the nature around me. Humans would never strive for anything better, for they would only make spontaneous decisions unique in nature to each man. They would be enveloped in the loving embrace of nature. To further my point, look at what we are doing right now! We are––or were––enjoying ourselves amidst nature and its beauties. It is undeniable that Daosim is essential to humans’ lives.
DA ZHANG: There would still need to be a law. Something that humans’ blind eyes could respect and honor and look up to.
LAO TANG: Look up, look to the side, look down, and nature would be there as your guide. Your law is meant to give humans structure in every aspect of their lives. Nature would give structure by allowing humans to act naturally, not under the false structure they have crafted around themselves.
DA ZHANG: But Daoist nature is not meant to be lord over men?
LAO TANG: It does not have to be a lord. It composes all that we stand on.

Silence.

DA ZHANG: It seems our ideologies were closer together than we thought. Yet, I think reward and punishment are necessary. And the construction of a just society must be our ultimate goal.
LAO TANG: Naturally rewards are given to those who do right things and punishments given to those who do wrong. As for a society…
DA ZHANG: No man can be kept in nature forever. But a society can be built upon nature’s laws. Dao needs not be forgotten among the law and rewards and punishments. In that way, all would be judged equally with nature as the law and the king. No corruption in sight. Hmph, not bad.
LAO TANG: I agree, Da Zhang. A few steps back and forward.
DA ZHANG: For years, the labor of my family, friends, comrades, and I have been used and then disposed of. Perhaps in seeking equal judgment and structure in Legalism, I was only searching for the life that I wanted as an appreciated soldier.
LAO TANG: And perhaps, as I learned more and more about our society and its philosophies, I yearned for a peaceful life without so much complexity. Perhaps, these philosophies should adapt to what we, as individuals, want in the context of our own lives. Not us to the abstract ideas of men who have lived long before us and in hypothetical worlds severed from our own.
DA ZHANG: After all, we live on the earth. Not in the clouds. 

Da Zhang and Lao Tang both nod at each other. Then both heads turn to the board. They take some time to analyze the game.

DA ZHANG: My turn. I believe our journey has come to an end. I pass.
LAO TANG: I pass. Let us count the stones.
XIAO LIU: Fools, absolute fools. We are not done!

Lights dim.

Scene 4:

Lights brighten, spotlight on Xiao Liu.

XIAO LIU: You are all fools! Blind fools! Can you not see that you all envision an idealistic future? It may have suited humanity when we wore crude drapes of leaves and warmed our loins next to small fires in dank caves, but it is unfit for humanity now. We cannot simply tear down the society we have built and skip off into the countryside, leaving our futures to fate, chance, and nature’s whims! Humanity cannot use any outside body to spur us along on our path to growth! We must depend on our society only, and therefore we must do all we can to foster the collective growth of all people.
DA ZHANG: Do you know what, Xiao Liu? We ARE inane and foolish, untrustworthy and irresponsible at best! At least with the law and nature, we can be guided in life.
XIAO LIU: You still treat mankind as sheep to be governed by some outside force. With a small hint of corruption––whether it be confusion among the sheep or manipulation of the outside force––humanity would descend into chaos. This is why each man must take his education into his own hands, with the guidance of his superior men to teach him.
DA ZHANG & LAO TANG: (sarcastically) “Corruption!”
DA ZHANG: You are the corrupted one, Xiao Liu. If the superior man does not know all facets of his teachings or abuses his superiority over another man, then both men add to the chaos.
LAO TANG: (sneering) Our sheep graze in the fields as equals, a shepherd always watching over them. Some of yours are made plump with useless societal knowledge while others live only to be sheared and skinned!
XIAO LIU: (leaping to his feet) If I am corrupt, then you all must tarnish your feet on my land!

Xiao Liu flips the table and violently kicks it, breaking off a leg.

XIAO LIU: Do you see this table? I have a dozen more in my house, collecting dust, not because I am corrupt but because I have earned my spot! I have proven through years of testing and studying that I have the intellectual merit and moral character to have what I have! I was born into aristocracy, yes that much is very true. But I deserve to be where I am today; I deserve to have the power that I have; I deserve to relax in my own courtyard without being accused of depravity with every opinion I share!

Silence. The men face each other in a rough semicircle behind the table, in a confrontational manner.

LAO TANG: I believe we have made a grave mistake. We have viewed each other as embodiments for each of our respective philosophies. In discussing the faulty past, ineffective present of humanity, and burgeoning future for humanity…
DA ZHANG: We have siphoned humanity out of our perspectives. As we criticize the philosophies, we refer to them as each other—Confucianism, Legalism, Daosim as you, you, and you. But are we them and they, us?

The men face the audience.

LAO TANG: I am not Daoism. I am a Daoist. I can see that I fight for a utopic, idealistic, unrealistic, likely unachievable harmony with nature. Too many millennia since the birth of society have passed for what I seek to truly be obtained. Yet, I am a man who wants humanity to embrace itself for what it is and  still be able to constantly change. I am a scholar who has studied the complicated ideas of men and now wants a simpler, more generally understandable way of life to appear. I am a man who simply wants peace and order.
DA ZHANG: I am not Legalism. I am a Legalist. I know I fight for a hypocritical, blind system that enforces a law upon supposedly inherently evil people even though that law was realistically created by the same people. Under this philosophy, humanity could never live for long, as Qin Shi Huangdi’s reign has shown. Yet, I am a man who wants to live in a fair and just country where all people are judged equally by the ruling power. I am a soldier from a line of soldiers who have seen and felt the apathy of those who sit behind their desks and send us like dogs to support their greedy ambitions. I am a man who simply wants peace and order.
XIAO LIU: I…I am not Confucianism. I am a Confucian. I know some of my colleagues abuse their aristocratic origins and easier access to education and therefore governmental power to step on the withered bodies of the lower classes. I knew…I— I still know that our system is not merit-based. The bureaucracy, once the epitome of Confucianism, has now manipulated Confucius’ wisdom to limit deserved social climbing. Intellectual capacity and moral character must not be present in only those born wealthy. Rags-to-riches should become a colloquial term, not one treated with disbelief and falling into obsolescence. Confucianism’s somewhat ignorant justification of inequalities between the classes and even between various professions is clear to me. I am a man who wants each person to have the chance to learn based on their own individual, intellectual and moral merit, for humanity to learn collectively. I am a man who has power, yet…yet I do not use it. I am an official who has seen the long-term control Confucianism creates but also one who knows of the distrust created by the inequalities this philosophy legitimizes. I am a man who simply wants peace and order.

Silence.

DA ZHANG: Friends, must we really be separate? 

Da Zhang lifts up the broken table and sets it up. With one leg missing, the table falls over. The three men watch it fall.

LAO TANG: No, friends. No we need not.
XIAO LIU: No.

They reach out their arms and grab each other's forearms tightly. They shake each other in unison, and then they stay still, forearms still clasped.  Lights dim.

Scene 5:

Lights brighten. Black and white stones are spread out on the ground, all around the men’s feet. They look around them, as if noticing them for the first time.

ALL: (to themselves, unheard by each other) Yin and yang. The harmony of opposites. Weaved in all throughout us.
LAO TANG: There lies harmony with nature.
DA ZHANG: There lies harmony among equals.
XIAO LIU: There lies harmony between mind and equality and natural change. (pause) Can you two help me get a new table out here and carry this one away?
LAO TANG: Of course.

Exit the three men carrying the broken table. A few seconds later, enter the three men holding a new one with new bowls of stones on top. They place it down where the old one used to be.

XIAO LIU: Please, leave the stones on the ground.
LAO TANG: I was thinking of asking you as much. 
DA ZHANG: So. If we don’t represent our philosophies, and we don’t represent the world, then can we at least represent ourselves? Forever open to change, forever dedicated to learning, forever approaching the world with a just eye?
XIAO LIU: I agree.
LAO TANG: Of course.
DA ZHANG: Alright then! Xiao Liu, you’re up! I’ll be black.
XIAO LIU: But you were black last time.
DA ZHANG: So I was!
LAO TANG: And we never counted our stones so we do not know who won.
DA ZHANG: And so we did not and so we do not! You have a back and armrests, Lao Tang. Why don’t you sit back, relax, and watch me win, hm?
XIAO LIU: Yes, Lao Tang, sit back, relax, and watch him win.
LAO TANG: Um…
DA ZHANG: Alright, let’s begin!

Lao Tang sits back smiling as the game between Da Zhang and Xiao Liu begins.

The End.