Later this year, The Game will go on a 13-show Asian tour that will include appearances at Novel Hall in Taipei and the New National Theatre (NNT) in Tokyo. It appears in Japan at the invitation of the NNT's Kuriyama Tamiya, putting Theatre Ensemble in the company of influential German opera director Peter Stein and France's Theatre du Soleil.

'We want to introduce Cantonese theatre to the world stage,' Chim says. 'The fact that an opera was originally written in Italian doesn't stop Hong Kong people from seeing it. So there's no reason why something originally written in Cantonese can't be performed overseas.

'It's very clear to me that a local theatre has to be about the city where it is based. No matter how difficult your content is, you have to find a way of building a bridge between you and the audience. That's why we insist on writing and performing in Cantonese. It is our language. It has power here. This play speaks to the people of Hong Kong, but it also has universal appeal.'

The Game, which is based loosely on Eugene Ionesco's absurdist drama Les Chaises (The Chairs), follows a simple storyline. 'There are two creatures with human characteristics,' Chim says. 'They are both over 100 years old and are living in an empty, boring space together, with only a few chairs. But these two creatures are filled with life and they find ways of keeping their imaginations alive. They play and chat and devise games for themselves. They play and play and play until they go a bit mad, until they can no longer tell what is real and what is a game. They become so enamoured of their own games they decide it'd be a waste if they didn't have an audience to watch them.'

This is where The Game takes a surreal turn, because Chim and Yan are the only actors on stage. 'The two creatures dream up an audience of lawyers, doctors, journalists, a policeman and others. The real audience never sees them. They just see the empty chairs where they supposedly sit,' Chim says.

One obvious theme is loneliness. 'It shows that, even if you have a life-long partner, you can still be lonely. Even if you are living in a big, crowded city like Hong Kong, you can still feel as lonely and bored as two people in an empty room.'

The Game transcends linguistic barriers because, like much contemporary theatre, it relies less on dialogue than on staging and 'physical theatre', which both Chim and Yan studied in Europe in the early 1990s. Dramatic lighting effects and an original score by Hong Kong-based composer Hugh Trethowan also help tell the story. There are more than 200 lighting and 70 sound cues during the intricate 90-minute performance.

The Game, like Les Chaises, is a farce that points out the ridiculousness of daily life. It's a theme that Chim feels applies to his own daily life, as he struggles to run an experimental theatre group that employs a full-time staff of 10 people (Theatre Ensemble gets about a quarter of its funding from the Arts Development Council).

'The government keeps telling us to make more productions and to make more in ticket sales, but they don't give us enough money to create good, original productions. Then they go and spend on something like the West Kowloon project,' he says.

Chim points out another absurdity: the upcoming run of The Game will probably lose money, despite its popularity and the sell-out crowd. 'The longer I do this kind of work, the more ridiculous it gets. It's just like this play,' he says.

While anyone who's had a frustrating day or a lonely night can relate to the play's main themes, Chim admits The Game is not the easiest production to follow. 'I think your understanding of this play will greatly depend on your own imagination. You can't watch this and expect to be spoon-fed like someone watching TV,' he says.

The Game, Studio Theatre, Hong Kong Cultural Centre, Tsim Sha Tsui. January 16, 17 and 19, 8pm. January 18, 3pm. Tickets, $100 and $200, can be booked on 2734 9009. Call 2619 0331 for details about additional shows.