English Drama Hong Kong Style: Blurring the Pro-Am Boundary

Hong Kong – A dozen youngsters, ranged around a piano in a Hong Kong apartment, belt out the words: “We are so happy…” — a song from the Stephen Sondheim musical, Into the Woods.

Over and over again they sing: trying to get the line just right. These young actors are rehearsing for a forthcoming performance, directed by local thespian Micah Sandt.

Watch them at work below:

English-language amateur dramatics has a long history in Hong Kong — stretching back to the colonisation of Hong Kong by Britain in 1842.  The oldest amateur dramatic group, the Hong Kong Players, can trace its origins to 1844.

The return of Hong Kong to China in 1997 made little difference. Within the past five years, Hong Kong has experienced a drama boom with some 20 amateur production companies producing about 28 productions a year.

Journalist and amateur dramatist Teri Fitsell puts this blossoming down in part to coincidence.

“Many [people] arrived at the same time who were keen on theatre,” she said. They included expatriates and returning locals educated as actors, directors, set-designers, make-up artists and so on.

It is especially “hard to get a job in Hong Kong if you are an actor,” said Fitsell, who volunteers for three of Hong Kong’s most established drama companies. For those who wish to keep practising their profession, the only way is to lock into the amateur scene.

Professionals Raise Standards

The arrival of these professionals raised the bar, she said. This in turn has attracted even more people to the amateur scene.

This was the case for Samantha Krieger.  “I had been living in Bangkok and Tokyo, but the amateur scene in those cities could not compare to Hong Kong,” she said.

Andy Burt, who teaches drama at the French International School in Hong Kong, formed his production company, Orpheus, last year.

Its first performance was Arcadia by British playwright Tom Stoppard. The production was well received and was listed as the top English language play of the year 2009 by the English-language South China Morning Post newspaper.

“It wasn’t hard to find the actors for Arcadia, especially when you … have lived and directed plays in Hong Kong for 16 years. I basically hand-picked them all,” Burt said.

Burt’s subsequent play Romeo and Juliet, performed in January 2010, featured Fitsell’s son, Hamish Campbell.

Campbell, who plans to take up a place to study drama at Brunel University in England in autumn 2010, spent his gap year between high school and university immersing himself in stage-work in Hong Kong. Hamish, like his his older sister, Molly, is a veteran performer here. The siblings carved out a reputation for professionalism during their school days.

At the time of writing, the 18-year-old was participating in eight productions, including the leading role in Sondheim’s Into the Woods.

Molly, who is already studying drama at Brunel, has observed that she finds that the amateur acting scene in England is often of a less professional standard than in Hong Kong, said her mother, Teri Fitsell.

Snakes in Paradise

One of the biggest problems that drama companies in Hong Kong face is a shortage of venues.

“You’ve only got the Fringe [Club] which has two 90-seat theatres, you’ve got the McAulay [Studio at the Hong Kong Arts Centre], which has  also only 90 seats, and then you leap from that to 400 [seats]. What we need is 200-seat theatre,” Fitsell said.

Many hope the long-talked about cultural district the Hong Kong government is planning in west Kowloon will fill the gap.

“They have been talking about it for 10 years now and still not a brick has been [laid] yet,” Fitsell said.

Money is another problem

While established companies such as the Hong Kong Players can return a surplus from its annual Christmas Pantomime, which funds smaller productions year round, many smaller groups rely on the box office returns to fund their costs, such as theatre hire, the set, costumes and rights.

The Odd Couple, the most recent production in which Fitsell participated, played the McAulay Studio in mid March and cost around HK$55,000 to put on.

True, the government-aided Fringe Club offers no-cost theatre hire, but it is closing for renovation soon.

This cost factor tends to deter companies from producing more serious productions. “When we did the award-winning play, Rabbit Hole, about a couple whose son dies, nobody came, because of the subject matter,” Fitsell said.

For more information:

Box Office:

www.ticketek.com.hk (Hong Kong Ticketing)

Companies:

www.hongkongplayers.com (Hong Kong Players)
www.hksingers.com (Hong Kong Singers)
www.acthongkong.com (ACT)
www.hkfringe.com.hk (The Fringe Club)
www.hkac.org.hk (Hong Kong Arts Centre)

Tags: Drama