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Natasha Rogai

Quartier Pigalle 
Hong Kong Theatre Association 
Fringe Theatre 
Reviewed: June 26  
Amateur productions in Hong Kong vary greatly in quality. Some can be indistinguishable from professional work. Others are more like the end of term show at school - of real interest only to the relatives and friends of those involved.
Quartier Pigalle Moulin Rouge District, a French-language production by the non-profit Hong Kong Theatre  Association,  falls somewhere between the two,  with good performances but  weak material.
The  association was founded in 2007 by French actress and drama teacher Emilie Guillot  to provide acting workshops in different languages for children and adults. 
Under the direction of Guillot, Quartier Pigalle was devised by  and for the French-speaking adult students, who developed characters based on the theme of a disparate group of people whose lives revolve around a seedy cabaret bar in  1920s Paris.
The resulting show was a succession of sketches which, while producing some good character portraits, failed to add up to a coherent whole. This would have been less of a problem had the individual scenes been stronger but there were not enough good lines and the more dramatic moments betrayed their origin as exercises designed to show off the performers' acting chops. 
Like many amateur shows, the production was too long and would have benefited from stricter quality control. Neither the music nor the sub-standard costumes gave any sense of the period the piece was supposedly set in. 
The French-speaking audience obviously enjoyed seeing a live performance in their own language, but while some of the French dialogue was good, the English surtitles were haphazardly translated and badly in need of  proof-reading.
These weaknesses were a shame because the overall standard of acting was impressive. The cast worked well together, characters were sharply delineated, lines not fluffed and diction was impeccable. 




Quartier Pigalle