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Performances Search Date: Category: ALL Chinese Opera Comedy Dance Drama Film Masterclass Music Concert Seminar Stage Musical Variety Show Western Opera Keywords: Select by Event Title: [Select One] Academy Concerto C Academy Concerto C Academy Concerto C Academy Ensemble C Academy Kekko Forn Academy Piano Conc Academy Piano Conc Academy Psappha En Academy Psappha En Acappella Gala Nig Alain Le Pichon an Brahms Addiction - CrossRoads Dance Gala Night - Death of a Loyal W Hong Kong Internat Hong Kong Internat Hyejin & Rachel in St. Paul's College Stars of the Silve Tiddler and Other Performance Details   School/Department: School of Drama Type: Production Title: Academy Drama: The Park Date/Time/Venue: Language: Cantonese Category: Drama Creative Team: Playwright: Botho Strauss, Director: Ceri Sherlock, Translator: Jessica Yeung, Production Designer: Bill Haycock, Associate Set Designer: Jan Wong, Associate Costume Designer: Jackie Lam Pui-yee, Lighting Designer: Leo Cheung Cast: Academy School of Drama students Description: Drama in Cantonese, English and Putonghua with Chinese and English surtitles Der Park, by the great German playwright Botho Strauss, is a five act drama that explores themes and characters from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream in a contemporary setting. In a way it is the dark side of Shakespeare's play, the dream turned into an inescapable nightmare. The story centers around Oberon and Titania, who, hoping to rekindle the dynamic force of love and harmony on earth, visit the night-life in a city park, the haunt of social outsiders and the young. However, their 'magic' powers fail as they themselves mingle with humankind and merge with reality. Eventually they become mortal and join in the moral maze of human relationships. Like Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream it largely plays over the span of the full moon¡¦s waxing and waning (four nights), the fabled period when 'lovers turn to lunatics'. Botho Strauss' play, although modern in its setting, retains magical and mythological elements that both frame and disrupt the text principally through the characters of Oberon (King of the Fairies), Titania (Queen and Goddess of the Moon) and Cyprian (a kind of amalgam of Puck and Daedalus ¡V Father of Icarus, who created the Labyrinth). In this way he reminds us that behind both plays are the myths of ancient Greece pertaining to the Minotaur and Pasiphae, the tragic woman who was cursed with love-lust for a bull. This is of course transposed by Shakespeare into the comedy of Titania falling in love with an Ass but in The Park is retained in its original form as befits a postmodern drama in which layers of the past, of history and memory, are unpeeled in the complex nuances of human behaviour. The programme contains bad language and the portrayal of sex and violence, only suitable for audience age 18 or above. No late comers will be admitted into the theatre until intermission (if available)   Back to Performance Main