Art preview: Pasolini gets a life

1001 Nights of Pasolini
Alice Theatre Laboratory

Nominated for best director and best stage effects at the 2011Theatre Libre awards, Alice Theatre Laboratory’s 1001 Nights of Pasolini returns for an extended run tomorrow, with new scenes.

Director Andrew Chan Hang-fai says the extra material offers more insight into the life – and death – of Italian cult filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini, who died in suspicious circumstances in 1975.

Scenes have been added between Pasolini (Desmond Lai Ho-yin) and policeman Paolo (Ben So Yuk-fai) and Laura Betti (Chan Shui-yu), who is lovesick for the gay film director.

“We all [the cast] admire Pasolini,” says Chan. “I dreamed of him the other night. I saw his corpse on the beach and heard a voice saying he had become a child. I don’t know what that means, but it became my driving force.”

Chan’s interest in Pasolini was piqued by the 1981documentary Whoever Says the Truth Shall Die.