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Kevin Kwong

Ghost Reader
Theatre 6
Shouson Theatre, HK Arts Centre
Reviewed: Jul 29
When does a horror drama stop being a horror drama? When the audience starts to snigger, which was what happened on the opening night of this Theatre 6 production, directed by Wong Ching-po.  Written by Wong, Nicholl Tang  and Simon Lai,  Ghost Reader consists of three short ghost stories narrated by veteran actor Tam Bing-man.
They're  horror tales  Hong Kong-style, with a  widowed writer haunted by memories of other spirits, an obsessive fan killing for passion, and a woman who buries her husband alive  to spare him from conscription.  They all take place in the same eerie, derelict mansion,  said to be  on the edge of hell.  
The show actually got off  to a good start, with effective  lighting and sound.  Tam's  narrative was old-fashioned and at times spooky. There were a couple of scenes in which the  apparitions looked real, thanks to Wong's background in filmmaking and visual effects. But the  set changes  were  clumsy,  which completely spoiled the atmosphere.  
The drama fell apart when  the menacing force of evil  finally revealed itself - as an extraterrestrial-looking being. It leapt onto a table, tried to look scary - but failed - before jumping off and walking  slowly off the stage.  At this point, the audience  burst out laughing. Tam, the star of  the  45-minute show, never appeared on stage so it isn't clear whether his performance was live or recorded.
Wong  deserves praise for his attempt to combine cinematic effects such as  video  and surround sound with theatre, but his lack of understanding of how the stage works and a weak script meant Ghost Reader was  less frightening than it was funny.



Ghost Reader