A dialogue between Ata Wong and Chow Yiu-fai: Between Poetry and Theatre

A dialogue between Ata Wong and Chow Yiu-fai: Between Poetry and Theatre

Ata Wong has invited Chow Yiu-fai to composed lyrics of 13 pieces in #1314. While Wong is specialised in physical theatre manifested with actors’ physical bodies, Chow, as a renowned lyricist, penned countless popular songs over the past three decades. This first collaboration of theirs is bound to generate unconventional chemistry.

Ata Wong Chow Yiu-fai

Artistic Director, Renowned Lyricist / Théâtre de la Feuille Professor, Department of Humanities & Creative Writing, HKBU

Tension between Poetry and Cast

Adapting Shakespearean sonnets, Théâtre de la Feuille rearranged certain verses or a whole poem for #1314. The performance is verbalised in Cantonese, Mandarin and English. Wong believes that, as a genre, poetry has its own charm. “I relish the distance in a poem; its words create heaps of space and tension for elucidating and interpreting.”

In the short film of #1314, Chow managed to recognise two kinds of tensions that he found reverting. The first was the resonance between words and actors. “The deliberate digression from the meaning of lines by the actors has created a form of resonance,” explained Chow. As Wong added, he purposefully asked his actors to avoid “playing” the actual poems directly. Instead, it is their states through which a distinctive dramatic tension is being portrayed. Such move echoes with, in Chow’s own verbatim, the second kind of tension: “Although some lines tend to convey a poetic and gentle mood, the bodies of actors remain highly strung, leading to an interesting conflict.” Chow hoped, with rewritten lyrics by him and his team, he would open a conversation with the actors instead of contriving lines for them.

In Wong’s view, words form the basis of narrative. On the execution of a theatre show, he adopts a human-oriented approach. The stage barely has any theatrical settings. The states of ensemble - converging, dispersing, active, and stationary construct a space that initialised from human beings and allows audience to perceive and express feelings that flow within. Without the need for fulfilling the narrative function, Chow and his team enjoyed a great deal of freedom in confronting such an enjoyable and audacious challenge.

Love and the Out-of-balance Relationship

In Chinese culture, “1314” is the homophony of “lifelong” (yisheng yishi). However, it suggests an entirely different meaning for the show. “The number 2 is missing in 1314. Lovers who are unable to be together are in an out-of-balance condition.” Wong believes such an unequal relationship stems from the act of unilaterally coercing your partner and loving yourself more than the other.

What are we talking about when we talk about love? Chow maintains that the abundance of texts about love – love songs, sonnets, and song of songs from the Bible – demonstrate how love deeply intertwines with our life. There has been an ongoing reverberation between the two.