Upclose with “Black Swan”
The Hong Kong Arts Festival’s upcoming theater production “Black Swan” lends a contemporary twist to Tchaikovsky‘s “Swan Lake,” where instead of the original score, the play is set to songs from the local music industry. Winnie Chau talks to the show’s creators, playwright Yat Yau, director Victor Pang and Frederic Mao.
HK: What do you consider the main differences between Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake” and “Black Swan?”
Yat Yau: First of all, I don’t consider “Black Swan” to be a musical. We’re not trying to express emotions with music, rather, we’re using the music industry setting to update the story. In “Swan Lake,” the plot where the prince is forced into an arranged marriage is too old-fashioned for today. I brought in the pop theme instead; now, instead of looking for a wife, the prince is looking for a singing partner as well as a lover.
HK: So the romantic element stays intact?
YY: We wanted the play to embody love; pure love to be exact. The purer the love is, the better. I love Tchaikovsky‘s work for its pure sentiment. “Black Swan” sets aside complicated issues such as sex and marriage. If you love someone, you love someone, that’s the end of the story. We’ve tried to erase the conditions of gender and marriage here.
HK: Any reason you decided to use the color black in the title?
Victor Pang: We tend to think swans should be white, so a black swan could be seen as “abnormal.” But it’s things that are out of the ordinary that bring meaning to the world. We tend to overlook exceptions, but in fact they are often the more important,
HK: As a veteran artistic director, what would you say is the major weakness of Hong Kong theater?
Fredric Mao: There is an unhealthy phenomenon in the local theater where the script development process is completely overlooked. Unlike with making movies, where we can cut out a few shots and expect something coherent in the end, in theater, actors need to disgest the entire text. Having completed my term at Hong Kong Repertory Theatre, I’d like to help promising directors and dramatists with their original local productions.