Remixing Shakespeare’s sonnets

The action on stage is highly stylized, adding another layer of obfuscation to the often abstract and indeterminate nature of the ideas contained in the sonnets. The overall tone of the production is dominated by the themes of the mutability of love, and the visceral emotions of jealousy, betrayal and despondency that inevitably follow. The scene in which the Dark Lady (to whom sonnets 127 to 154 are addressed) stands atop a human pyramid, and the oldest Shakespeare (there are three of them, representing the Bard at different life stages) tries to destabilize the love shrine he himself had built by tearing his younger selves away from it, is among the more obviously symbolic depictions of jealous passion.

The actors wrote the music for their own parts. Wong shares that his process involves receiving creative inputs from company members. It also made sense to use the skills of those of his cast with a musical background. Han Mei, who plays the Dark Lady, was the first runner-up in Hong Kong's 18 District Singing Contest in 2018, for example. And Chu Pak-him, who portrays the mature Shakespeare, plays in local indie band Juicyning.

It was up to the music director, Charles Kwong, to weave compositions by a diverse bunch of actors into an integrated whole. If the interwoven product doesn't come across as seamless, that's probably intentional.