HONG KONG HEROES
A play’s revival brings to Beijing the little-known story of seven soccer players who were determined to get to the 1936 Olympic Games
In 2008, Hong Kong playwright Anthony Chan had just taken the position of artistic director of Hong Kong Repertory Theater. That year, he met Vincent Heywood, a Chinese culture researcher from the UK, who told him a story.
It was about China’s first team appearance at the Olympic Games. Lee Wai-tong, a football player from Hong Kong, led seven other soccer players from a small fishing village in Tai Hang, Hong Kong, to compete for China at the Summer Olympic Games in 1936, which were held in Berlin. To raise money for traveling, they started with touring in Asia and competed in 27 games without a single loss. They made history and impressed the world.
“I was surprised to hear the story. As a Hong Konger, I didn’t know it,” says Chan .“The year of 2008 was also when the Olympic Games were held in Beijing. So I wanted to write a musical about sports, telling this little-knownstory to today’ s audiences .”
Chan has directed 69 productions and designed sets for 13 shows in his decades-long career. He chose the form of a musical production to tell the story, because soccer as a musical theme is rarely seen and he wanted to give audiences a fresh experience.
He invited veteran Hong Kong composer Leon Ko and lyricist Chris Shum to write the music.
Titled Field of Dreams, the musical premiered in Hong Kong in 2008 and received four Hong Kong Drama Awards the same year: best overall performance, best original music, best actor and top 10 most popular productions.
This weekend, the musical is being presented in Beijing for the first time.
“This musical is about faith and determination. I wanted to tell a story which is set in the 1930s but can be shared by people of today. It’s encouraging and inspiring for the contemporary audiences, especially the young people, to pursue their dreams despite hardships,” says Chan in Beijing. “I also want to present how Hong Kong looked like in the 1930s — less skyscrapers, less technology, less commercial.”
Chan also notes that this year marks the 40th anniversary of Hong Kong Repertory Theatre, the oldest and largest professional theater company in the city. He want store vive the musical again as a celebration.
In 2003, the musical got a fresh look, adding dancers from Hong Kong Dance Company. In the upcoming performances, audience will see new changes, including a live orchestra.
“I often look back on this musical though it has been almost 10 years past. Every time we revise it, we have new music, new actors and new ideas,” says lyricist Shum.
Shum and his longtime partner, composer Ko, have been working together for over 10 years. They are behind the soundtrack for the award-winning film Perhaps Love, by Hong Kong director Peter Chan.
“Before writing music for Field of Dreams, I knew nothing about football,” says Ko. “We spent months with professional players in Hong Kong to get inspiration. With long observation, I found that players have their tempo with the football. I tried to blend that tempo into the music beat.”
To create the scenario of Hong Kong in the 1930s, Shum uses lots of dialects, which he learned from the elder generations from his family because they are not used by young people nowadays.
“I wasn’ t sure about the use of those dialects but when the musical premieredin Hong Kong, the response of the audiences was very positive. The songs reminded the older generation of words that they also heard or spoken at a young age,” says Shum.
One of the most popular scenes of the musical, according to Shum, is a 13-minute song performed when the eight soccer players tour Asia to compete for money.
“It’s performed with different languages because of the countries they visited, such as Vietnam, Malaysia and Myanmar. We watched the audiences’ reactions and they were very impressed by the music and the actors’ singing,” says Shum, adding that in the Beijing performances, the musical will be performed in Cantonese with Mandarin subtitles.
According to Chan, there are lots of jumps and running onstage, which is a physical challenge for actors in the two-and-a-half hour production. Actors also trained with professional soccer players to make their performance convincing.
Actor Lau Shau-ching plays one of the leading roles in the musical, a young player who followed Lee Waitong to compete in the Olympic Games. The character is good at hitting the ball with his head, so Lau spent a long time practicing the technique.
“I enjoy the music very music. One of my favorite lines in the musical is ‘no matter how far the ball comes to me, I will kick it back with my forehead’,” says Lau, a graduate majoring in acting of the School of Drama, Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and joined in Hong Kong Repertory Theatre in 2001.
This musical is about faith and determination. I wanted to tell a story which is set in the 1930s but can be shared by people of today. Anthony Chan, playwright