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Kevin Kwong

Design For Living
Edward Lam Dance Theatre
Kwai Tsing Theatre
Reviewed: Mar 29
Why do we go to work? That  question  opens and hovers over this three-hour, two-act drama about the rat race and how surviving it changes the way people behave and makes them forget who they are. 
 Written by Sylvia Chang Ai-chia   and directed by Lam Yick-wah,   Design for Living revolves around a small office caught in the global economic meltdown. The ending is revealed at the beginning, so much of the play is a recollection of events from various points of view, with a strong linear narrative.
 Chang, who also  plays the  lead role as the ruthless and manipulative  boss, has created  a dozen vivid and realistic characters one may find in any office. David (David Wang)  is  a corporate climber who schemes his way to the top, Sophie (Hsieh Ying-hsuan) is a competent, hard-working executive but a victim of her own emotions, and  Li Xiang (Joseph Cheng Yuan-chang, below left with Chang) is  a naive and idealistic junior executive. 
 The first act is slightly sluggish, with much time spent  filling in the characters' backgrounds and the complicated relationships between them. But Act II moves up several gears when the office is faced with a situation that is a matter of life and death. Although the audience knows  what is going to happen next, Chang's script gradually builds  towards the finale and manages to move and surprise.  
 Lam's effective use of theatrics - stylised/choreographed movements and scene changes, and even a  sequence worthy of a musical - moves the show along, but moments of heavy melodrama more suited to sentimental Taiwanese soaps  impede its flow. At times, Chang played  her character more like a  mother figure than a cold, scheming manipulator.
 But there were some excellent and strong ensemble performances  from the Taiwanese cast throughout, especially  Wang and Hsieh.



Design For Living