Feeling a bit guilty about not getting round to booking any of the events at the HK Arts Festival this year, Mrs smog & I decided to try one of the few events that still had tickets available when we did: Orpheus X by the American Repertory Theater at the HKAPA. This came with some fairly glowing reviews from other places, but frankly, despite my best efforts, I can’t really see why.
It seemed to us that the whole thing lacked some sort of structure, particularly in the first hour (of about 90 minutes overall). If (but only if) you had a reasonable grasp of the original Greek tragedy then it was possible to relate some of what we were seeing to that, but it was all very disjointed. In the last 30 minutes some semblance of narrative became apparent, and the music (which was not really what you would expect from its billing as “rock”) started to add some power and emotion which had been lacking earlier.
But still, at the end of it all the immediate thought was “so, what?”, and it was clear from overhearing comments in the foyer afterwards that this is what other people thought too (the English-speakers at least). There was no clear message, and, it seemed to us, nothing really to get your teeth into. The staging was stark and employed two video projections – a large traditionally dimensioned screen and a tall thin column – but it wasn’t at all clear to us what we were to make of a naked Eurydice with red petals, or walking backwards and forwards in some sort of cage, nor of what we think was supposed to be trickling honey.
It was interesting to note that despite the performance being more or less sold out a good proportion of the seats were empty at the start and more became so as people walked out throughout. I guess there must have been some local reviews from the earlier performances (Sunday’s was the last) which put people off. Overall the whole thing was pretty much inaccessible to most people it seems – far too arty for its own good. But despite all that it’s good to do this sort of thing occasionally to avoid getting stuck too much in the same old rut and possibly missing something new and good. Next year we’ll be getting our act together to book earlier and get to more of the Arts Festival.
