“To restore a kind of everyday life in the chaos and disorder that are deliberately created…” is regarded by Cheong Kin I, director of The Dress Looks Nice on You (also known as Neptune in Chinese), as the main objective of the play. It is not intended to speak emotionally for psychotic individuals or to convey sympathy, but to try to construct a state of everyday life using theatrical language, even though it may not be a reality understandable or acceptable for most people.
The Dress Looks Nice on You comprises nearly 60 pieces of stories or fragments dispersed among different points in time and space and among different characters and genders. Centring around psychotic individuals, the play relates the story of a theatre director who attempts to create a production about psychosis but keeps thinking whether she should proceed with the production and how to represent the relationship between reality and imagination in theatre. Five performances of The Dress Looks Nice on You were staged at the Black Box Theatre of the Old Court Building in 2021. With vibrant stage effects, a plot with intertwining dialogues, and a non-linear narrative, the play left a deep impression on the audience and was voted by theatre critics as a “noteworthy production in 2021”. The revival version this year will be staged at the Small Auditorium of Macao Cultural Centre to showcase a purposefully chaotic and imaginary world to a larger audience.
By Sara Lo
A freelance theatre practitioner, media writer, activity planner and administrator. Lo has also participated in theatre production and education and among her works are the educational theatre piece Bonecage and the forum theatre Home vs Work. In recent years, she has written many interview articles and commentaries on the cultural and creative industries, art development and stage performances in Macao, which can be seen on different platforms such as Performing Arts Forum, C² Magazine, All About Macau Media, and Reviews.
This article is excerpted and translated from Chinese