The dramatist Tang Xianzu (1550-1616) was a dejected government official yet successful on the creative side. However, his theatre plays were banned by the emperor several times. Tang has a collection of four plays on dreams included Peony Pavilion (1598) in which Interrupted Dream is the tenth act of a total fifty five. The tenth act depicts a restrained teen girl in a feudal society breaking the rule by visiting the forbidden back garden to experience the splendour of spring bodily under her maid’s influence. After the visit, the teen girl meeting up with a handsome stranger in her dream. They made love. She woke up lovesick, painted a self portrait, asked to bury it in the back garden in her will. She died and was buried in the back garden under the peony pavilion.
Danny Yung, the director of Interrupted Dream about Interrupted Dream, has made uninterrupted efforts in de-/re-constructing traditional Chinese theatre and classic literature. In the past five years, inspired by the Interrupted Dream, Yung made several rounds of experimentations and interpretations on dreams in theatre.
Yung is keen on adapting the omnipresent “One Table Two Chairs” setup in traditional Chinese theatres into a platform for engaging various cross-generation, cross-consciousness and cross-culture dialogues and practices. Two or Three about Interrupted Dream is to wrap up Yung’s experimentations in the past five years, and a tribute to the dramatist Tang Xianzu.
Danny Yung
Chuk Yin-man
Cindy CheungMartin ChoyChuk Yin-manEllen KongTsui Mung Yuen
Xiao Xiangping (Stockholm)
Steve Hui (aka Nerve)
Benny WooJohn Wong
I constantly feel that the forward-thinking theatre arts embodies the potential of discovering and challenging the boundaries of theatre arts, and the world that lay beyond such boundaries; at the same time, understanding and managing the way of thinking and guidelines beyond theatre arts.
Those who are concerned about culture would have the same sentiment, creating is about triggering development of culture, including that of the greater cultural environment and policies. The ‘Culture’ we discuss here has evolved beyond arts and culture to the capital ‘C’ – Culture at large. The ‘culture’ is a classification of the arts with quantifiable measures, such as you are a Kunqu artist and she is a Javanese dancer; you are a performer and he is a stagehand; how many performances he needs to do this year and how many audience members she needs to draw this year…… ‘culture’ has become part of the economic consumption, promoted as part of education, seen as a service to society or touted as a national branding. These are all distinctly quantifiable features that can be clearly managed by policy makers.
International Exchange Director & Producer: Wong Yuewai
Lighting Designer: Mak Kwok-fai
Sound Designer: Chung Fong-ting Soloan
Stage Manager: Carmen Cheng
Asst Stage Manager: Choi Hau-ying
Video Controller: Edison Juai
Coordinator: Hung Lai-kwan
