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HARDY TSOI Sik-cheong took part in his first production of Broadway hit Man of La Mancha in 1975, when he was a student in the US. Now, having spent two decades building up Hong Kong's theatre scene - by co-founding the Sha Tin Community Theatre Project, Prospects Theatre and TNT Theatre - he returns to his roots with his own version of the four-time Tony-winning musical.

Only this time, it's been reset in Mongkok and translated into Cantonese by Professor Gilbert Fong Chee-fun, best-known as the translator of Nobel laureate Gao Xinjian's plays.

'I've always been involved in taking western classics, such as Eugene O'Neill and Henry Miller, translating them into Cantonese and producing them for local audiences,' Tsoi says.

'I've always wanted to do a full-fledged Broadway-style, Cantonese-language musical, but have never had the resources to do so, till now ... To rewrite and rescore a major work, and to find a cast who can act on stage, sing well and dance, that's a tall order.'

Though TNT Theatre is usually known for more serious fare than Broadway musicals, Tsoi says Man of La Mancha fits in with the group's goal of producing works that honour both 'tradition' and 'timeliness', thus the company's name. 'Both are important,' Tsoi says. 'Without tradition, you go nowhere; but theatre also has to keep with the times.'

Tsoi refers to his Man of La Mancha as a loose adaptation as opposed to a strict translation. 'There is, as you know, a dialect problem with Cantonese's many tones,' he says. 'So, let's say that it's not a translation, but the cultural transference of a western classic into a Hong Kong work. There is no point trying to preserve, 100 per cent, the original flavour of the work, because we are simply not living in New York in the 1960s. So, I have taken artistic licence to keep it relevant to Hong Kong, but with respect to the original text and score.'

Man of La Mancha is a story within a story, based on the original 16th-century Don Quixote by Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. In the musical, a righteous man named Cervantes is imprisoned during the Spanish Inquisition, an oppressive and violent government movement against Jews, Muslims, Protestants and other perceived dissidents. While he awaits his trial, Cervantes finds himself surrounded by bloodthirsty fellow prisoners: criminals who have formed their own underworld. Cervantes is taken before the kingpin of the prisoners for a mock trial. In his defence, he tells them the story of the legendary Don Quixote, who champions the poor and downtrodden and fights against corruption and evil. Moved, the prisoners sing The Impossible Dream (which, incidentally, became a hit by Jack Jones), as Cervantes is led away to trial.

'Many Hong Kong people don't know about the Spanish Inquisition. It's an event that is very far away from them,' says Tsoi. 'But they understand oppression, intolerance and high-handed governance, which we can all relate to.

'Look at the fear that gripped the city during the Article 23 debate,' he says, referring to the proposed legislation that threatened freedom of speech in Hong Kong. 'So, I've changed the setting. The prisoners are not in a Spanish jail; they are triad underlings living in Mongkok. And that's the neighbourhood in which Don Quixote finds himself fighting for justice.' Don Quixote is 'both a hero and a fool', Tsoi says. 'Everyone knows him as the man who dared to dream the impossible dream ... In my work, I wanted to retain the three basic themes: the duality of life, good and evil, right and wrong. The falseness of surface reality. And the celebration of folly.'

This is not the first time Tsoi has used theatre to reflect the city's political and social anxieties. In 1985, right after the signing of the Sino-British Joint Declaration, Tsoi co-produced I Am Hong Kong, a play about local identity that is the most-performed local drama, with 114 performances and counting. After the Sars crisis, Tsoi and TNT Theatre came out with Sorry! Didn't Know It's You, a Sars-related play that opened at the Fringe Club.

Man of La Mancha is part of a trend as more Cantonese-language musicals, such as the Hong Kong Repertory Theatre's highly popular Sweet and Sour Hong Kong, hit the stage.

'Musical theatre has always existed in Hong Kong, but ... as Cantonese opera. Then came the big English-language musicals such as Les Miserables, Phantom and Cats. They did well, but maybe did not connect with a certain segment of the Hong Kong public. So, it's no surprise that Cantonese-language, western-style musicals would be on the rise. What we have to do is to take these classics and make them relevant to the here and now.'

Man of La Mancha, Fri-Sat, 7.30pm, Dec 5, 2.30pm, City Hall Theatre, Central, $90, $140 Urbtix. Inquiries: 2734 9009

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