A Clockwork Orange stage play packs a powerful punch
Dystopian novel A Clockwork Orange has been adapted for the stage with a strapping all-male cast, writes Kylie Knott
IT'S BEEN 51 YEARS since A Clockwork Orange - the controversial novel by British writer Anthony Burgess - was published. It raised eyebrows with a plot focusing on the sadistically violent world of the book's protagonist and narrator, Alex, and his gang (the Droogs), and their battle against the tedium of adolescence.
A decade after it hit bookshelves, eyebrows were lifted further by director Stanley Kubrick's 1971 cult film adaptation.
Now a stage version of the book comes to Hong Kong when British-based theatre company, Action to the Word, fire up the Lyric Theatre of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts from November 6-10, following a highly successful world tour that has stormed Britain and Australia.
It's the first time the show has been staged in Hong Kong, and with anti-government sentiment running high in the city - incensed recently by protests over television licences - a play with themes that include the championing of free will while deploring an oppressive state could not be more relevant.
"The story of A Clockwork Orange stands in any country at any time. That's the genius of the novel. Every generation has dissatisfaction with a governing body and the most natural thing is to strike out at the people who herd us into corners. It will always be relevant and will work in all countries," says director Alexandra Spencer-Jones.
