The Elephant in the Room – A Hong Kong Musical

We went to see the locally-produced musical The Elephant in the Room. The show has long garnered popular acclaim since its first show in 2019. With boy band Mirror’s Frankie Chan as the lead character, this round of showing was guaranteed to be a hit. It was, in so many ways, exceedingly good.

The Plot

I don’t want to spoil it for anyone here, so I will be brief. The scene opens at the “interchange,” where someone who dies will come and confess the regrets of their lives. Once they decide that they will let go of these regrets, then they will head on to the next leg of the journey beyond their death.

When the main character Lily comes, the two overseers of the interchange realize that she has no memory. If she does not remember her life, then she is not able to make the decision of whether she is letting go of the regrets. As such, she would not be able to go on to the next journey.

As she waits in the interchange for the next person, someone calls out her name. In comes Long, who recognises her. The story then unfolds as he tries to revive the memories of her life.

The Theme

There is really only one original idea that runs through the musical, and it is the idea of regret. For a show of one hour and fifty minutes, one unifying idea that engages the audience on the thinking level certainly suffices. In fact, I thought the simplicity of the theme was a notable strength of the musical. The theme was well developed, both in terms of the storyline, characterization and the dialogues.

There were also some very good and witty insights into the somewhat nuanced distinction between regret and remorse. The play has conveyed this idea well, and certainly neither in Cantonese nor in English have I thought very hard about this distinction. Therefore there was some food for thought, and this was what added depth to the musical.

The Stage

The show was held at the Xiqu Center, and it was a good choice. Xiqu Center has a large capacity for the throng of Mirror fans out there. The stage design was beautifully done, and the main scenes take place in a cosy setup that shows a typical Hong Kong home. The scenes transitioned seamlessly, and the stage crew did an amazing job.

The only reminder to audience is that the Xiqu Center is nearly unbearably cold. Do bring a windbreaker or wear long sleeves.

Character Development

There are two main characters and two supporting characters. I really liked the performance by lead actress Wong Ching-ching. She is also the originator of the story. She has portrayed her character effectively, just like any girl next door and it was very likeable. All the four actors have drawn out the essences of the character that they played. They have also conveyed that sense of yearning for “what if,” in the characters’ lives.

There were also quite a few moments of humor, particularly good wordplays that Cantonese speakers are very accustomed to.

The Music

Finally, the music was a nice touch of creativity in the show. My only problem is that, although the marketing materials suggest that these are “Cantopop classics,” none of the songs, absolutely none of them, sounded familiar to me. It dawned on me that the Cantopop that I considered as classic belongs to an era that must have been prehistoric to the creators of this musical.

Granted that none of these songs were actually written specifically for the musical, I wanted to listen to the lyrics to understand whether the music was also chosen to accentuate some aspects of the musical. Soon, however, I realized that it served to distract me from the dialogue instead, because I could not really hear the lyrics. I then just enjoyed the music as it sounded. They all had a mellowness that fit the mood of the musical.

Finally, there was a live band on site to play the music. The actors sang the lyrics, and delivered the show very well.

The cast and the creators are indeed young. This production appears to be reflective of the sentiments of next-generation Hong Kong. Its success lies in the fact that there is an authenticity to the ideas of love, regret, yearning, misfortune, and death that were held together in a simple plot and a well-developed theme. The creators and producers of the musical have all had significant exposure with arts and theater abroad, but I sensed no pretence in the musical. There was no effort to represent it anything more than what it really was, unlike some of the local art that I have seen. The simplicity of the musical was what made it down to earth, moving and memorable.