Hong Kong’s faded Empire Theatre back in the spotlight with vote to give it historic status

A dark corridor meanders through a lane of tailor and shoe shops. Occasionally a dog barks or a cat meows. Who would imagine this was once the carpeted stairway leading to a glamorous theatre where world-class artists performed for high society?

“It was the best in Hong Kong at the time. Stylish inner design, comfortable seats, just sheer top-class enjoyment to be in there,” recalled cultural impresario Darwin Chen Tat-man of the Empire Theatre when it opened in 1952.

Renamed the State Theatre in 1959, the 1,400-seat venue, with its large dress circle and underground car park in the heart of North Point, was virtually the city’s cultural hub in its early years, bringing in a league of top international musicians that put post-war Hong Kong on the world map of classical music.

With the opening of the City Hall in 1962, its role was eclipsed and focused primarily on the cinema business for which it was built. With Hong Kong’s economic take-off in the 1970s, the rising affluent middle-class gradually turned to other forms of entertainment that marked the demise of many post-war cinemas and theatres, including the famous Lee Theatre in Causeway Bay, which gave way to redevelopment.

After a fire in 1995, the State Theatre closed on February 28, 1997, and in 1999 it suffered the indignity of being turned into a snooker parlour.

The original furnishings such as seats and lighting have long gone, but the building’s structure, including the auditorium, has remained intact. Small vendors and businesses now occupy the shopping arcade. It was a sleeping hub until the Antiquities Advisory Board voted last month by a large margin to propose it as a grade one historic building.

“The State Theatre is now the only post-war standalone theatre, a rarity that probably prompted members of the board to vote for the proposed grade one status,” Andrew Lam Siu-lo, the board’s chairman, said.