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[1] It took close to a decade for Chung Ying Theatre to secure the rights to stage the Cantonese adaptation of The Play That Goes Wrong, according to the troupe’s artistic director Dominic Cheung Ho-kin. Judging by the audience reception on October 18 when the hit British farce premiered at the Kwai Tsing Theatre, it was well worth the wait.
[2] Created by playwrights Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields, The Play That Goes Wrong went from playing at a small venue above a British pub in 2012 to the London West End two years later, before moving to Broadway in New York in 2017, picking up the prize for best new comedy at the 2015 Laurence Olivier Awards along the way. A touring production visited Hong Kong in 2017, and it is still playing to audiences in the UK and the US.
[3] The premise of this slapstick farce, a play within a play, is simple: an amateur theatre troupe is about to perform a 1920s-style murder mystery, called The Murder at Haversham Manor. To say the production is not ready for the opening is a gross understatement. With props still not installed or placed properly, and one actor still learning his lines, what could go wrong does, indeed, go spectacularly wrong on the night.
[4] Directed by Edmond Lo, and translated by Selina Kan, this adaptation lives up to what is expected from Chung Ying, a 46-year-old theatre company known for its Cantonese and bilingual staging of English-language plays, especially comedies.
[5] This production incorporates enough Hong Kong cultural references to make it locally relevant without losing that tongue-in-cheek British humour in the original. It plays on dated theatrics common in Cantonese adaptations of yesteryear. Its inclusion of Cantopop, local theatre and even pet culture adds another layer of fun to the work. Lo, who plays both Chris, the hapless director, and Inspector Carter, has been with Chung Ying for close to three decades, and his artistic maturity in directing and acting is evident.
[6] This is an ensemble piece and the entire cast – Chu Yung (Messi), Hinson Wong (Trevor), Joann Chan (Annie), Edwin Wan (Jonathan/Charles Haversham), Michael Mok (Robert/Thomas Colleymoore), Sunday Yuen (Dennis/Perkins), Nicole Liu (Sandra/Florence Colleymoore), Liu Kwok-yiu (Max/Cecil Haversham/Arthur) and Bubbles Man (Linda) – was outstanding in their comic timing.
[7] The loop in which the same dialogue among four characters was repeated over and over again, caused by Dennis not remembering his lines, was slapstick comedy gold. Chung Ying is an established theatre company that has tackled multiple dramatic genres, but occasionally, it is pure joy to watch it stage a work that plays to its strengths.
The Play That Goes Wrong plays at Yuen Long Theatre on November 8 and 9.
Source: South China Morning Post, October 20
