What to see: Le French May is sparking off a Gallic invasion in visual arts, with something in every medium and style under the sun. Those who venture off the beaten path to the Cattle Depot artists' village in To Kwa Wan are in for a treat, as a group of young French artists collaborate with Hong Kong's cutting-edge talent in Developing Time, a mixture of video art and installation that contemplates evolution and making time stand still. Also at the village is a tribute to two-dimensional painting, which is coming back in a big way: Paintings-Figures-Paintings features 80 works by young French artists in the most traditional of disciplines - figures.
Co-presented with Le French May are three gallery exhibitions. Alisan Fine Arts has chosen the sculptures of Wang Keping and paintings by Tung Lo, both Chinese living in Paris. Wang's wooden sculptures (left) have a great tactile quality and sensitivity. Kwai Fung Hin is showing abstract landscapes by Patrick S Naggar, who uses oil and mixed pigments to create canvases inspired by nature. Master Paintings Art Gallery, which will be closing down soon with owner Eric Smulders relocating to Phuket, Thailand, is going out with a bang in a show titled Colours From Earth To Sun, featuring three French artists, Suzanne Feraud (above), Denis Ribas and Vivianne Lachaud Meyer. And if that isn't enough, 10 Chancery Lane Gallery is showing a series by accomplished French sculptor Raphael Scorbiac.
Developing Time, until May 31; Paintings-Figures-Paintings, until June 4, 63 Ma Tau Kok Road, To Kwa Wan, Kowloon, tel: 2104 3322. Sculptures Of Wang Keping And Paintings Of Tung Lo, until June 15, 315 Prince's Building, Central, tel: 2526 1091. Patrick S Naggar, until June 30, G/F Aberdeen Marina Tower, 8 Shum Wan Road, Aberdeen, tel: 2577 1232. Colours From Earth To Sun, until May 31, G/F, Alexandra House, Central, tel: 2580 2383. Raphael Scorbiac, 10 Chancery Lane Gallery, Central, tel: 2810 0065
What to watch: Jean Genet's play, The Maids, has all the usual ingredients of intrigue - two maids alone in a mansion take turns pretending to be their house mistress, and in the process reveal their mixed emotions of jealousy, envy and hatred for their boss. This harmless game turns into a real nightmare when one of them, so consumed with role-playing, kills herself under the illusion she is poisoning her mistress.
Now think of the play being performed in Putongua by men in drag hailing from the China Youth Arts Theatre and you've one of the most daring projects undertaken by a state-subsidised theatre company on the mainland. French playwright and poet Genet (1910-1986) spent most of his life in prison because he was a compulsive thief, but he wrote some of the finest modern drama. Lin Yinyu, a Beijing- and Moscow-trained director, is at the helm of this production.
The Maids. June 7 to 8, 8pm. City Hall Theatre, Central. $100 to $150 from Urbtix, tel: 2734 9009
