New Vision Arts Festival 2023 "The Old Man and His Sea"Leisure & Cultural Services DepartmentNVAF 2023

A young woman discovers that her grandfather had read The Old Man and the Sea when he was young and was inspired to adapt it as Cantonese opera but never completed it. In her reverie, she fulfills his lifelong dream.

Theatre master Tang Shu-wing and Cantonese opera master Yuen Siu-fai are longtime friends. For this production, Tang helps Yuen realise his decade-long wish to adapt Nobel laureate Ernest Hemingway’s novel. Apart from playing the title role, Yuen has penned a new libretto attesting to the abstract minimalist aesthetics of the Chinese opera tradition while emphasising the essence of Chinese classical arts.

Tang fuses contemporary theatre with Chinese opera, identifying the roots of theatre both East and West, juxtaposing Chinese opera movements and Western physicality, enabling the story to traverse time and space. No matter where different artistic genres originate, they inevitably meet along the same path.

More Details: https://www.nvaf.gov.hk/programmes/47/

1. Approx 1 hr 30 mins with no interval
2. Please arrive on time. Latecomers will only be admitted at a suitable break
3. Performed in Cantonese with Chinese and English surtitles
4. Meet-the-artist session after each performance