Hong Kong university professor revisits T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land with strings attached

Julian Lamb first “performed” his favourite poem with musical accompaniment as a young undergraduate 13 years ago. Now a Chinese University professor, Lamb will repeat the performance, albeit with a few tweaks, at the Kwai Tsing Theatre later this month.

T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land is packed with tantalising literary references and ageless philosophical questions. But it is not obvious how it can be performed on stage outside of earnest poetry readings. “I don’t read it; I perform it. I have memorised the whole poem by heart,” says Lamb.

In a way, the poem that starts with the line, “April is the cruelest month”, is made for dramatisation. It is a cacophony of male and female voices that, on paper, can be baffling.

“I do my best to put on different voices, including a woman’s voice. People who have seen the performance have commented that our emphasis on characters helps to make the poem clear,” says Lamb.

Lamb hadn’t performed The Waste Land since graduating from university. After being introduced to David Pereira, an Australian cellist, who was interested in combining the spoken word with music. Late last year, the duo decided to revive Lamb’s student production and performed it in Canberra to glowing reviews.