Sentimental Actress @ MUSE , a 14-page personal interview (Part one)

女孩不笨by Joanna Law and Phoebe PoonPhotography by Andrew Tang

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Sentimental actressKearen Pang, well-known artist and playwright, blends her emotions and memories into her stage productions, and touches the hearts of her audience.

Imagine a little girl. An only child, alone at home, looking for ways to entertain herself. She finds a set of mahjong tiles and lays them out in a square. It doesn’t matter that there are no other players around. She plays all four positions and speaks for all four players. When she’s done with mahjong and wants some music, she finds a bowl, some chopsticks, a fan and starts creating rhythms and sound effects, which she records, along with some words that she attributes to characters she invites into her little world.

Today, that little girl has become one of Hong Kong ’s best-known talents, recognized for her achievements in scrīptwriting, directing and acting. Her one-woman monologues - which she writes, directs and performs - are big hits. As彭秀慧(Kearen Pang) puts it, “Your childhood character marks what you will become in the future.”

It is a Friday afternoon. At a table outside the studio of Kearen Pang Production and Trinity Theatre (三角關係)in To Kwa Wan, an aroma of instant noodles fills the air. Pang’s chopsticks remain more or less in the same spot. She picks up a sausage, stares at it and then thinks about the new question she has been asked. The sausage hangs in the air and is returned to the bowl.

She cautiously says, “If you say real big frustrations, I can’t say I have many…” It could sound arrogant for her, as a “successful person,” to make such a statement. It might sound as if she were smug about the ease with her career has taken off, or as if she were lecturing on the virtues of her can-do attitude and fortitude.

After graduating from香港演藝學院(Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, HKAPA), Pang began her career as a stage actress with中英劇團 (Chung Ying Theatre Company) in 1998. In 2004, she set up her own theatre company, KPP. Its main productions have been her one-woman shows, including 29+1,《再見不再見》(Goodbye but Goodbye) and《月球下的人》(Laugh Me to the Moon). She has also been involved in other stage performances, acting classes and workshops. She co-wrote the movie《伊莎貝拉》(Isabella), which she later adapted for a novel, and directed《大城小我》(City Little We), a青年遊樂劇場(a fun-filled youth theatre production).

It seems logical to attribute her success to a single-minded determination to make her dreams a reality. The program for Laugh Me to the Moon included a thought-provoking question – “If dreams were 384,000 kms away, would you still be able to see them?” – which recalls the catchline of a TV ad from more than a decade ago,「只要有夢想，凡事可成真」(“Everything will come true as long as you dream”). The play’s protagonist李麗珊(Lee Lai Shan), or小山(Little Shan, meaning “hills”), is an obstinate dreamer who tries to fulfil her dreams of flying by making a pair of wings out of shower curtains and attempting take-off. Her flight is only from the top of a desk to the floor, yet even in this she fails as she hurts her ankles.

Pang’s childhood was full of dreams. She dreamed of being a newsagent selling newspapers in the streets – it seemed like a good way to make money. When she became interested in travel, she imagined becoming a tour guide. When she became a big fan of軟硬天師(Softhard, an entertainment duo comprising radio hosts林海峰 Jan Lam and葛民輝 Eric Kot), she fancied getting a job at Commercial Radio 2.

It was梅艷芳 (Anita Mui) who sparked her dream of becoming an actress. While acting is generally a precarious career, with long gaps between jobs, Pang’s path has been relatively smooth. Whereas Little Shan suffers because she cannot reconcile the gap between dream and reality, it takes Pang a while to recall any real frustration in her career. She finally recounts a period back in her HKAPA days when she struggled to land a part despite numerous auditions. She describes the process of auditioning as a “necessary pain,” and recalls that the times she felt worst were when she had performed well in an audition, but didn’t land the part, only to be told by the director later: ”You actually played very well, better than anybody else… it’s just that you’re too tall…” “You really don’t know whether you should be pleased or not,” she says.

Pang calls herself a typical Aquarian. “I don’t like planning. I’ll panic if you try to make an appointment with me,” she says. She attributes her achievements to an intricate sequence of機遇 (chances and opportunities). In 2006, her participation in the rerun of《公主復仇記》(Beyond Our Ken) precipitated the success of《29+1》.The convergence of two simultaneous events in 2006 made Pang’s productions hot topics. Beyond Our Ken was an appealing story – it is a stage adaptation of a film – featuring an emerging actor,梁祖堯 (Joey Leung), whose popularity soared after he performed in singer何韻詩 (Denise Ho, aka Hocc)’s musical《梁祝下世傳奇》(Butterfly Lovers). At around the same time, the film《伊莎貝拉》(Isabella), which Pang co-wrote, won the Silver Bear for Best Film Music at the Berlin International Film Festival. “The timing of it all was just right,” says Pang. “At that time, reporters were very willing to cover our shows.”

Lucky coincidences notwithstanding, smart decisions also played a major part in Pang’s success. A clash of dates meant she had to choose between playing a role in Beyond Our Ken and walking the red carpet at the Berlin Award Ceremony. A similar clash occurred on the eve of her of her graduating from the HKAPA. Pang was one of several students offered the chance to be part of the chorus in張學友(Jacky Cheung)’s new musical《雪狼湖》(Snow.Wolf.Lake). Being in a show featuring such a big star would be a major opportunity for any budding actor, and it would pay well. At the same time, she was offered the lead role in Woyzeck, the academy’s final production of the year. “I thought for a second and made up my mind to go for Woyzeck – I wanted to experience playing the main character in a play before I graduated. Plus the character herself was very challenging.”

She made the right decisions. “Sometimes I’m quite proud of my choices – I knew what I wanted to achieve, even though I was giving up something that was deemed great.” She earned an audience for her future production from Beyond Our Ken. And the Woyzeck story didn’t end there. Chung Ying’s chief and deputy artistic directors were in the audience, and after seeing her performance they invited her to join the company. “The choices you make will affect the path you take,” she says. Giving up chances to perform with a celebrity, and later to walk the red carpet as a celebrity herself gave her the chance to become a respected stage actress.

“Some people have an inborn desire to perform – they enjoy being watched on stage and being applauded,” Pang says. She admits to having had such a desire at an early age, yet protests that it was not her major motivation. “When I was small my mum was very proud that her daughter could play the piano. Once we went with a tour to a hotel where there was a grand piano, and she said, ‘go play it!’ If my desire to perform had been strong, I would have done so, but I was inhibited. Strangely, it feels different to go on stage in the theatre. It seems to offer me comfort.”

Pang says drama is about storytelling and sharing, and that the desire to perform should not be confused with a yearning to show off. While many actors seek to make their breakthroughs by playing characters very different from themselves, Pang likes her characters to bear some of her own traits: “When I write, I always write a story that I want to tell, and then think about the sort of character who would help to tell the story. This character will share similarities with me, for example it might be someone who enjoys solitude. You may find my characters similar, but that’s me.”

If she wanted simply to impress her audience, she says, she would have used wires and flown on stage at the end of Laugh Me to the Moon. Initially, she had intended to do so, and had even booked and tested the wires. But she thought it through again and decided to drop the idea. “If I were on wires everyone would be like ‘wow she’s on wires, she’s so high up!’ But I’m telling a story about a girl who wishes she could fly. If all the audience sees at the end is an actress on wires, it would ruin the whole thing. I realized it would be far more powerful if no one actually flew, but everyone felt like they were flying in their heart.”

She adds that sometimes to tell a meaningful story, long-time yearnings and arresting stage effects have to be sacrificed.(Part 1/3)