The Play:
The Synopsis:
http://www.huayifestival.com/design4Living/main2.html
生存需要聪明，生活需要智慧。一名传闻将被篡位的女老板，与12个穿著华丽的上班族，为了争夺一个可以鸟瞰整个城市的位置，尽出奇谋……事业的台风、爱情的地震、财富的海啸，在生存的边缘优雅地讨论生活，到底谁是最后的赢家？金马影后张艾嘉将演绎现代城市人面对生活与生存的无数考验与矛盾。 香港鬼才导演林奕华继2008年带来了构思大胆、手法新颖的现代版《水浒传》后，这次将从现代职场男女角度出发，看办公室的男人如何看女人，而女人又看见怎样的自己，再一次展现林奕华对城市生活的独特解读与想像。
与张艾嘉同台演出的还有首次演出舞台剧的台湾偶像剧《恶作剧之吻》的超人气偶像郑元畅，以及爆笑千面型男王耀庆等；鬼才影后明星偶像联手探索城市风尚，展示一幅华丽的城市蓝图新风貌。
The Review of 30 Jan show [Designing woman (Straits Times, 3 Feb 2009)]:
Sylvia Chang shines as a manipulative and ambitious chief executive
Actree and co-playwright Sylvia Chang said in an interview that she had poured her entire life's experience into this play, and this solid production showed her ambition and reach.
It is set in an office, where retrenchment looms in the wake of an escalating financial crisis. The office drones are ruled by a manipulative female chief executive played by Chang, who wants the company to be publicly listed despite the bad times. The immaculately dressed characters, who look like they walked out of a chic, understated lifestyle magazine, play elaborate games in the office - and bedroom - to get what they want.
But like the hungry characters in it, Design For Living wants to be more than about office politics. It also wants to say something about the nature of human ambition, disillusionment and the sacrifices one has to make for power and success. This becomes the play's strength and also its weakness. On the one hand, there is an unmistakable grandeur about the play - it is more than 3 hours long, beautifully staged and a representative range of characters join and collide in this urban jungle.
This is helped by a stunning set which fills the whole of the cavernous Esplanade Theatre. The gigantic pinewood structure with steps leading up to darkness simultaneously evoked an office lobby, the hierarchical corporate ladder and the steps to a temple of commerce.
Hong Kong director Edward Lam's vision of the workplace is characterised by frenzied movements, the frantic click-clacking of heels, opening and closing of documents, the constant moving of tables. It is a powerful vision, and he has orchestrated a sassy modern-day epic well attuned to the rthyms of the affluent society of our times.
On the other hand, the "office urban jungle" trope, where the big fish eat small fish, is not new. Chang's script, while smart and sassy, sometime lacked subtlety and relied on stereotypes. For example, the idealistic newcomer played by Taiwanese heart-throb Joe Cheng is unimaginatively called Li Xiang, the phonetic equivalent of "dream" in Mandarin. The character turns out to be a cliche - his aspirations in his job application are to be an astronaut or philanthropist.
Chang's backgroun as a screenwriter shows here too, in some cinematic quirks. She relies on a narrator to describe her characters' feelings like a voiceover in a film, which can be clever and wry at times, but mostly grating. There are also huge dashes of melodrama and an over-emotional soundtrack.
Some fat could also have been trimmed off the running time, which was worsened by two technical faults that caused the production to have 2 extra intermissions.
Yet, the veteran actress' performance is well worth the price of entry. She was fascinating to watch as Zhang Wei, the dragon lady who is really a tragic and broken figure. She morphs continually, from a wily old snake with the silky, menacing voice, to a master strategist, and finally a vulnerable woman unable to trust and love.
David Wang is her match in the acting stakes, playing an over-reaching, seductive young man who is his own ruin. Heart-throbe Joe Cheng, however, mistook acting like an overgrown child for idealism and innocence.
It has flaws, but Design for Living has the breadth and pathos of an operatic tragedy, with big emotions and big statements about hte state of modern life. Its revelations may not be new, but it brings them across with compelling, vivid intensity.
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