The bard’s work will be adapted into dance, opera and original theatre works in West Kowloon this June
The inaugural edition of the Hong Kong International Shakespeare Festival, which will take place at Freespace, West Kowloon, officially kickstarts on June 5, with five theatre productions that will run through June 16. Before that, from May 10 to 12, one performance—part of an associate programme of the festival—will be on show at the Cultural Centre. The festival will spotlight artists from Hong Kong, Romania, Italy, South Korea, the UK and Australia.
The festival will open with French composer Charles-François Gounod’s Roméo et Juliet, an opera in five acts performed in French; this version is produced by Opera Hong Kong’s Warren Mok. The opera premiered in Paris in 1867 and is one of the most successful opera adaptations of the Shakespeare tragedy in history.
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Next, local theatre veteran Tang Shu-wing will stage an all-female nonverbal version of King Lear, performed by Hong Kong actors and an international cast from Romania’s National Theatre Marin Sorescu, Craiova.
Hong Kong Dance Company (HKDC) will collaborate with Italy’s Imperfect Dancers Company to put on Lady Macbeth, an adaptation of Macbeth, with Hua Chi-yu, a four-time winner of the Hong Kong Dance Awards, in the lead. Hui has performed in the lead roles of some memorable local productions, like Lady White of West Lake (2017), The Butterfly Lovers (2018) and Princess Changping (2010).
In Macbettu, Italian director Alessandro Serra will put on an all-male version of Macbeth, set in Sardinia, Italy, where cowbells, horns, stones and animal skins fill the theatre to present the primitive desire for power.
Henry V Man and Monarch is a bold adaptation of the original Henry V by Philip Parr, the director of the York International Shakespeare Festival. It is a one-man performance delivered by Australian actor Brett Brown and explores the many sides of this king of England as a monarch and a man.
The festival closes with Hamlet_Avataar, which blends Korean clown performances and Indian music to offer a refreshing take on Hamlet.
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