Night Just Before The Forests

‘Captivating and unsettling.’ 
Macau Daily Post

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 A MACAU ARTS FESTIVAL COMMISSION 2018, OLD COURT THEATRE. 

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An isolated young immigrant in a hostile city – a misfit and delinquent who is probably on the run – stops a stranger in the rain on the corner of the street. Wrestling with a world demarcated by violence, prostitution, poverty, and sexual vulnerability, he is looking for a room for the night, or even just a part of the night.

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Bernard-Marie Koltès (1948-1989) was the greatest French playwright of his generation, and Night Just Before the Forests is one of his most captivating and unsettling texts. Koltès said he wrote it like a musical composition, whose motifs and variations evoke a profound sense of restless yearning and disorientation.

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This pioneering new production re-imagines the monologue as a polyphonic work for five performers of different nationalities and genders (Macau, Hong Kong and South Korea). Through sound technology, ensemble voicing and sonic manipulation, the character’s plight is conjured across a chorus of fragmented parts that jostle with each other in a mixture of harmony and discordance. The voice that emerges could belong to almost anyone, a universal protest, a cry for help.

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IN COLLABORATION WITH DIRKS THEATRE ASSOCIATION, MACAU
TRANSLATION INTO ENGLISH: SINÉAD RUSHE
TRANSLATION INTO CANTONESE: IP MANDY, IP KA MAN, WU MAY BO

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CREATIVE TEAM

Direction: Sinéad Rushe
Sound design: Niels Lanz. Associate Sound Design: Brian Chan
Set and Costume Design: Lam Ka Pik. 
Makeup: Wan Nip Hong
Lighting Design: Tou Kuok Hong
Rehearsal Documentation and Film: Alena Shen
Producer and Production Management: Nicholas Tang
SM: Bonita Ho. DSM: Lao Chi Wai
ASM: Yeung Kin Ning

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CAST: Wu May Bo. Ip Ka Man. Koh Wan Ching. Kim Shin Rock. Chan Tai Yin.