Innuendos, puns and risque gags are not things people usually associate with the Hong Kong Repertory Theatre but that is how the company is raising the curtain on its 1999-2000 season. It is kicking off with Whose Wife Is It Anyway?, an adaptation of Ray Cooney's very British farce Out Of Order, for which he received the Laurence Olivier Award in 1990. The plot still revolves around two lovebirds married to other people. Their romp is complicated by their professions: he is a parliamentarian from the ruling political party, she is from the opposition. When a body is found hanging in the swanky hotel suite they have booked themselves into, the usual ludicrous consequences follow. But when director Dr Daniel Yang translated it into Chinese, for a run in Taipei at the end of last year, he decided to change the context. So, instead of the main protagonists being from Britain's Tory and Labour parties, Yang's version has one belonging to the Kuomintang and another to the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party. It played to full houses for 22 performances around Taiwan in January, which encouraged Yang, artistic director of the Hong Kong company and consultant to Taiwan's National Theatre and National Concert Hall, to bring the fun to Hong Kong. He felt people here could easily identify with Taiwan's political situation and the politicians mentioned in this version - but the names have been slightly changed for Hong Kong, to add to the laughs. The male protagonist - Cooney's imaginatively named Richard (Dicky) Willy - and his loyal sidekick, George Pigden, are re-christened Yeung Sai-chow (played by Yip Chun) and Poon Chiu-cho (Chan Suk-yi) in the Hong Kong version. Sai-chow sounds the same as 'Little Dick' in Cantonese, and Chiu-cho is 'Do what you are told', echoing Cooney's original puns. While Jane Worthington's alter ego Wong Chun-chun might not have been given an odd name, her contribution to the romp is bouncing around in skimpy underwear for much of the show. Yang was in Munich, visiting the city's national opera three years ago, when he first came across this play. He says he loved it as soon as he saw it - despite the fact it was delivered in German, which he does not speak. 'If the play can be enjoyed by someone who hardly knows a word of the dialogue, imagine how good it will be for an audience that understands,' he says. Whose Wife Is It Anyway? is certainly a departure for the company, which usually delivers more serious fare. Yang's last work with the company was the solemn De Ling And Empress Dowager Cixi, about the power games in the Chinese imperial courts more than a century ago. But the company wants to start the season on an upbeat note, with the sobering fare to follow, Yang says. After this farce comes the melancholic Small Ripples In A Dead Pool, an adaptation of a Li Jieren novel. Other productions planned for the new season include a version of Oedipus The King, Sophocles' classic adapted by Ho Man-lung, and Ricky, My Love, an epic 'cross-century musical', written by Raymond To Kwok-wai and starring Canto-pop singer Hacken Lee. For Yang, the production is 'a rare chance to let go'. 'Most of my work in the past were plays that either had great literary value or were classics,' he says. 'But I have never done anything that didn't have some relevance to society. I was thinking: 'Do we need to do plays that toe the conventions and harbour important messages all the time?' 'This play is definitely not Shakespeare or Chekhov, but it has a good script,' he says. 'If the audience has a great time watching it, I'll be happy directing it. That makes it a worthwhile thing to do.' Yang can be confident it will go down well with local theatregoers - 90 per cent of the tickets have already sold. 'Watching the farce that leads from adultery has universal appeal,' the director says. Whose Wife Is It Anyway?, Hong Kong Repertory Theatre, today to Sunday, April 27-May 2, 4-9 and 11-12, 7.30pm. Sunday, May 1-2 and 8-9, 2.30pm. $90-$160. Urbtix, tel: 2734-9009
