PLAYING DAD
Adrian Pang, co-founder and artistic director of Pangdemonium For this veteran thespian, the satisfaction of being a father lies in embracing all its attendant highs and lows.
After working full time at a TV corporation for 10 years, Adrian Pang found himself at a crossroads: renew his contract for financial security (but have zero fulfilment) or take a leap of faith to start the theatre company of his dreams. He decided on the latter and the rest, as they say, is history. Hence, for the past 12 years, his two boys have been “proud brothers to their baby sister”, Pangdemonium.
“Our mission is to tell stories on the stage which are enriching, inspiring and above all, of the highest artistic and production values, in a league with the very best of theatre internationally. I daresay we share this mission with The Macallan,” Pang declares, with a tinge of well-deserved pride.
What does fatherhood mean to you?
When I first became a father, I said to myself, “Now I know my purpose in life”.
Suddenly, at age 33, my life made sense – and that has governed my existence for the past 23 years as dad to Zack and Xander. I’m invoicing them once they get their first jobs.
How does playing a father on stage complement or juxtapose being a father in the real world?
Being a dad is the best drama training, probably because there’s so much drama and it is lifelong training. But seriously, being a father to my two boys is the most important role I will ever have the privilege to call mine. It’s the most challenging, rewarding, infuriating, bewildering, gratifying, soul-sapping, heart-filling, lifeaffirming part of my little world.
Undeniably, that has informed the (fatherly) roles I play as an actor. The responsibility, duty, pain, pride, pressure, pleasure and the almost existential oneness of father-and-son: it all feeds into my work. I’ve had the joy of sharing the stage with both my boys on a few precious occasions, and each time it’s been enlightening and enriching – both as character and as real-life dad.
Pangdemonium’s rather cheeky mission seeks to “give us all a much-needed kick in the nether regions once in a while”. How do you inculcate within your children the courage and curiosity to challenge the status quo and push boundaries?
I’ve grown up with an innate rebellious streak and (for better or worse) have inadvertently led by example in that regard. But never for the sake of it, for selfserving attention or to the detriment of anyone else. Your actions may be frowned upon by the self-righteous majority, but I believe that if you can make some kind