Before After is divided into sections based on time. It shows the changes that occur before and after a devastating event. A time before and after is created after a tragic, irreversible event. What experiences do we go through that make us realize that an event has affected “our” lives The play Before After begins by answering this question.

Soo-yeon Sung has gradually witnessed the death of her father who has cancer. San-ha Chae feels indebted after his friend’s death. Sung-ik Jang, who has almost lost his sight due to the assault he suffers in the hands of the government, has fallen into a state of helplessness. Da-huin Kim is trekking in the Himalayas on April 16, 2014. Kyung-min Na retraces those times gone by from his diary and memories. Su-jin Jang dramatizes the actions and feelings of the government.

The play uses a pivotal event in our society that intersects with before and after events that occur in different people’s lives. What happens as a point in “my” time on stage suddenly meets “your” space.

Butoh x Text

Seven patients in a white room, a spectrum of madness converge into a sharp white beam of deep love and humanity.

The White Room Research Collective (WRRC) and Hong Kong Repertory Theatre is proud to present “White Room”, Hong Kong’s first ever butoh-theatre production, which will take place from the 10-13 November as part of the International Black Box Festival 2016. This production has Yukio Waguri, a disciple of butoh founder Tatsumi Hijikata, directing. It also features critical acclaimed actress Bonni Chan, who won Best Actress in the 8th Hong Kong Theatre Libre Awards for her portrayal of madness in Psychosis 4.48 earlier this year.

Seven characters trapped in a white room
Set in an mental asylum, the seven characters, man A, man B, man C, woman A, woman B, woman C, woman D, all are inspired by Carl Jung’s clinical patients. Each in a plead to stand tall in the darkness. Their burning desires loom.

Butoh-Drama Methodology
Through the use of butoh-fu, the actors will develop a layered inner life of their character, each with their specific ailment. In doing so, the production hopes to pose the question of “what is normal” “What is madness”

Butoh-fu (舞踏譜) is a choreography method developed by Tatsumi Hijikata, the founder of butoh; it uses paintings and words as a way to access a performer’s inner world and helps them to focus their energy. For example, the character of Woman C may be given the painting “The Scream” by Edvard Munch as a source of inspiration. As she goes about her everyday actions and speaks her lines, she should also simultaneously sense the air around her distort and screaming; which in turn transforms the quality of her speech and movement.

After working away from home for six months, a husband returns, only to find that the house is empty. Last night, he was still speaking to his wife on the phone. An estate agent appears all of a sudden, revealing a secret in the process. The husband is left in even greater confusion. The wall and the ceiling are overgrown with morning glory vines, suggesting that the house has been left vacant for a while. Is his wife whom he hasn’t seen for a long time still in the house, or is she gone for good

The 9 Fridas is written by British playwright Kaite O’Reilly and directed by Prof. Phillip Zarrilli, renowned as an advocate of a system of theatre training in which body and mind become one. He will lead a cast of performers from Taipei and Hong Kong to bring the different faces of Frida to life. The 9 Fridas is not simply a traditional biographical work, but a New Writing one in form of narrative theatre utilizing soliloquys, dialogues, footages and narrations to create and examine the artist’s struggles in life, and to shed light on situations today.

“…the more I discover, the more I am convinced that we were related, that I had to be a descendant of the Eunuch Admiral.”

A powerful work about castration and politics, Descendants of the Eunuch Admiral recounts the legacy of the man responsible for China’s most extensive maritime expeditions in the 15th century, the legendary eunuch, Admiral Zheng He. Using the metaphor of castration, parallels are drawn between the power struggles of court eunuchs and the displacement of modern human beings who make sacrifices in their lives in order to survive in the highly competitive and industrious society.

Ｗhat was Zheng He searching from the sea What do we desire from our position in society

International Black Box Festival 2016: Toneelgroep Amsterdam “La voix humaine” (Netherlands) A lovelorn woman and her painful confession made at the edge of life and death Adapted from a soliloquy written by renowned French poet and director Jean Cocteau in 1930, La voix humaine is directed by Ivo van Hove, Artistic Director of Toneelgroep Amsterdam, a leading theatre company in the Netherlands and performed by a renowned stage and film actress in the Netherlands, Halina Reijn. La voix humaine tells the story of a woman who lingers at the edge of a complete emotional breakdown after breaking up with her boyfriend. Through continuous conversations with her former lover, she attempts to rescue a love already lost. Unable to accept her loss, she numbs herself by dwelling on her memories, imagination and conversations with herself. In the end, she has made a decision – a decision of life.