Time of Our Lives
‘Mou Man Tai’ is the latest PROJECT AFTER 6 endeavour for aspiring performers to get their jazz hands on.
Tiger moms. Feng shui masters. Domestic helpers. Everyone has an opinion about them. And that includes Lindsey McAlister, the OBE-honoured founder of the Hong Kong Youth Arts Foundation (HKYAF) who’s just penned a series of vignettes depicting quintessential slices of Hong Kong life tied together neatly as Mou Man Tai. Even more significant is that the English-language production features an ensemble cast of mostly amateur performers dabbling in musical theatre for the first time. And it’s clear from a sneak peak held at Julius Bär’s Hong Kong office on 18 May that they’re having the time of their lives.
Mou Man Tai – Cantonese for “no problem” to the unititiated – features 14 original songs by BAFTA and Emmy award winning composer Nick Harvey (he’s composed the score for Sky series The Heist among others) with sets and costumes by Marsha Roddy. Primarily a love letter by McAlister to the city she’s called home for the past three decades, it resonates more profoundly at a time when everyone is emerging shell-shocked after years of pandemic-induced hibernation. It’s her second collaboration with Swire Properties’ PROJECT AFTER 6 following 2018’s Cube Culture, a musical takedown of life working in a cubicle that many Hongkongers know way too intimately.
As someone who counts Dirty Dancing: The Classic Story on Stage as mandatory audience participation theatre and who attends midnight mass mainly to sing Christmas hymns with the choir, I can vouch for the appeal of performance as an extracurricular activity. Plenty of people I know are closeted hams – and a karaoke mic doesn’t always cut it. Thrown into the KitchenAid mixer cast those who sit at an office all day long with water cooler conversation as their only means for grandstanding. And even that was taken away during the pandemic’s WFH restrictions. So it’s no wonder that the open call for Mou Man Tai yielded more than 500 applicants in December 2021. From there, 33 were selected to sing, dance and act their hearts out in the final production, whose box office, for the record, goes to the HKYAF.
Resistant as most of us may be to giving any kind of credit to a big developer, Swire Properties is one of those landlords whose buildings everyone wants to work in. It walks the walk while talking the talk, simultaneously reaching forward while looking backwards. Its recently opened archive in Cambridge House chronicles the company’s history with an emphasis on its Quarry Bay development through a string of interactive exhibits: part museum, part customisable event space and all with the latest gadgets that makes exploration fun. Its regular e-newsletter The Mag keeps everyone up on happenings in the ’hood and PROJECT AFTER 6 treats the Taikoo Place office cluster as a community that welcomes engagement – such as busking (no security guards tell you to “Move along”) and musical masterclasses. Inviting McAlister for an encore indicates Swire’s commitment towards a better work life balance for the people who live and work in its spaces.
The teaser at Julius Bär (one of its executives is performing in Mou Man Tai) gave us a glimpse of what’s to come. Although some performers could do with a bit more polish, that wasn’t the point. Everyone, regardless of octave range or acting prowess, gave it their all, and afterwards, at a casual round table, their enthusiasm was contagious. A few described McAlister as a consummate professional who had a strong vision for what she wanted to achieve. They felt that they were mentored by one of the best in the biz, with a rehearsal schedule more rigorous than their day jobs (shows are few and far between but you may want to pay attention for if/when the next open call is announced). The difference: singing, dancing and acting didn’t feel like a job. And that may be the best thing going for those of us trying to navigate the city we love post-pandemic, while figuring out what the new normal is. — RL
Mou Man Tai
Where: ArtisTree, 1/F Cambridge House, Taikoo Place, 979 King’s Road, Quarry Bay
Hours: June 16-24, 2023, 2:30pm and 7:30pm
Closed: N/A
Details: $150, PROJECT AFTER 6