Ahead of another sold-out run of his office drama, Design for Living, lauded cultural critic and theatre maverick Edward Lam talks Stephen Chow, Roland Barthes, and white-collar fantasies with Edmund Lee

Edward Lam is a busy man. Splitting his time between both sides of the border, Lam has just published a book on the Mainland, finished the China tour of Design for Living, and is applying the finishing touches to his stage collaboration with comedian Jim Chim, He is Kong Girl She is Kong Boy.

Swiftly afterwards, Lam will stage the second Hong Kong run of his popular drama, Design for Living, which sold out its first run in March within eight hours. Starring Taiwanese actress Sylvia Chang and pop idol Joseph Cheng – whose popularity has coincidentally skyrocketed since the play’s first casting call last August – the piece delineates the conflicted desires and emotional disillusionment prevalent in the modern workplace.

We meet over a coffee on a leisurely Saturday afternoon, when Lam speaks, with the casual eloquence of his cultural commentaries, about this latest production.

The Chinese title of your play translates as ‘The Glamorous White-collars: To Live or to Survive’. Why this title?
I’ve always felt that the Hong Kong people place great emphasis on their survival, but not on the way they live. They’re under the impression that they’re constantly under threat, under fierce competition, under the fear of being replaced [in their jobs] anytime. That’s why people love Stephen Chow’s movies: they can instantly identify with Chow’s protagonists, who are often tricked, oppressed, or denied the opportunity to assert themselves.
Another interesting thing is that many of these white-collars actually have no interest in their jobs. They treat office life as a duty, through which they can find their ‘living’ and the luxuries that go with it. As they’re so petty, I added the word ‘glamorous’.

As irony.
Exactly. ‘Glamour’ represents desire, and the desire of these office workers is unlimited. The lower their status, the more they want to become Cinderella. But there’s inevitably a discrepancy between the reality and their fantasy future, which puts them in much pain. The play addresses this.

What is it like working with Sylvia Chang?
To me, Sylvia is an extremely contemporary figure. She’s a role model for young females: a delicate combination of glamour, intelligence, femininity, and masculinity. For the creative process of this play, I first came up with the idea and characters, and asked a scriptwriter to write four drafts. Then Sylvia wrote the fifth based on those previous ones, only retaining about ten to 20 per cent of the previous drafts. She added in many of her own experiences.

Your previous plays tend towards the abstract. For example, with 2006’s Madame Bovary Is Me, you adapted the novel by creating an impression, rather than telling the story from beginning to end. The narrative of Design by Living, by contrast, is much more literal and straightforward. Did you intend to make a more audience-friendly play?
It depends on how many people see dramas as discourse. Most people in Hong Kong only see them as entertainment, but I’ve always created my plays by treating them as a discourse. For instance, when Roland Barthes wrote A Lover’s Discourse, he used the 26 letters of the alphabet to examine the meaning of love. So the author’s approach determines a work’s accessibility and popularity. When I directed Madame Bovary, maybe it’s because I knew that I was doing it in [a smaller venue], so I knew what the target audience could comprehend.

So you’re targeting a different audience with Design for Living?
When I was first commissioned to do this, I knew that was going to be performed in ten cities, in theatres with capacities between 1,500 and 2,700. So is everyone who walks in going to be an intellectual? A university graduate? Someone who has the ability to construct and deconstruct a so-called ‘text’ with us? I wasn’t particularly trying to create something audience-friendly; it’s just that you have to understand who your target is. With this piece, I think we’re working towards a balance between art and entertainment.

You’ve described your play as a modern version of Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard. How do you connect the two?
The Cherry Orchard was a soap opera about family; youthful, yet filled with sentiment. In Design for Living, the office workers are like a family too. The interesting thing is that the play talks about the nobleness of people, and how they struggle with their nobleness when corruption creeps in. This is a time where consumerism rules. In every era, you need some plays to capture the essence of the time, and I think this play does that. Even though it’s been performed 36 or 37 times now, I can still hear the soul speak almost every time, as in Chekhov’s.

The Cherry Orchard is intriguing in its dual nature, flirting with both comedy and tragedy. Do you see your production as one or the other?
The greatest comedy is always a tragedy in its essence. I often raise this example: a scarecrow is standing on a rice field with a spear stabbed through it. “Are you in pain?” asks a crow. And the scarecrow replies, “Only when I laugh.” If, say, you go to see my play with Jim Chim, He is Kong Girl She is Kong Boy [which satirises Hong Kong’s latest gender stereotypes], you may be laughing like crazy, but you’re really crying: you’re crying with laughter. This is the ultimate aim that we strive to achieve with theatre.

Design for Living runs from Friday 3 to Sunday 19 at APA Lyric Theatre, in Putonghua with Chinese surtitles.