words rachel mok

2 On Stage explain how there is more to non-humans than feathers and fur

Mankind is indeed the most troubled species of all. As philosopher Erich Fromm puts it, “Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve,” – and like a shadow, that problem dogs us for the whole of our lives. The answer, at least for Tony Wong and Pichead Amornsomboon of 2 On Stage theatre company, lies with the animals. In their latest endeavour, they launch their own National Geographic/Discovery Channel live on stage but it isn’t a show about cats and dogs (or environmental protection, Wong stresses) – it is all about human beings.

The animals, says Wong, who returned to Hong Kong at the beginning of the year with a masters degree in physical theatre from Australia, are just symbolic of humans. ‘After I started preparing for this show, I realised humans and animals are pretty much the same: We live, we die; we mate and we kill.’ Yet, Animal Geographic is not anything like Cats, and the actors are not performers dressed in character costumes like those we see in a Disneyland theme park. ‘We don’t really imitate animals in the show, we just take their essence,’ says Wong, and Amornsomboon adds, ‘We are not using animalization – we are not content with that. Other people have done that already. We have done that already – [we ask] is there another way that we can present our ideas?’

What for? and why not? are two essential philosophical questions raised by the pair, though they don’t provide answers. ‘It is not like “we know, so we tell you what life is” – we just want to share. We put some questions on the table that we don’t know the answers for. Maybe at the end we don’t even have a standpoint – and it is pointless to take sides anyway,’ says Wong. And Amornsomboon goes on: ‘We don’t pinpoint how human beings originated – we cannot choose whether to be born or not, and we don’t exactly know how the world evolves: The scientist and the religionist are always in argument. We cannot ask why we are born, but only ask how [to live].’

The show will be half physical theatre and half drama, and one of the main story lines contrasts a comfortable panda and a recently caught tiger in a zoo. ‘People tend to think the zoo kills freedom for the animals,’ Wong says, ‘but what animals want are a home and food – which a zoo can offer.’ It is a kind of simplistic, anti-psychology thinking but perhaps it is what makes the work of 2 On stage provocative. Still, although fans will no doubt look forward to the pair’s characteristic monologues, the show isn’t calculated to be pontifical and a fancy, upbeat and seductive Bollywood-style dance (‘I don’t know why we need to dance… but it should be funny,’ Wong says half-jokingly) will surely loosen the mood.

If each had to choose an ‘animal’ symbol for his own life, Wong would plump for a crow – he saw a lot of the birds during his studies in Australia. Imitating its caw, he says, ‘They sound pretty frustrated. I wonder if they do feel frustrated as they fly past windows every day and see so many people’s suffering and unhappiness.’ His partner in crime, Amornsomboon, thinks of an insect. ‘You know, I have various frustrations at different stages of life. Right now I think my life is like an ant – it is very routine,’ says the HK Drama Award Best Actor and Best Director. ‘I choose the way I live but sometime I feel as if I have been constrained by life as well. Why does it look like I am going to the same places to eat or see a film, and hanging out with the same people every day in my life? It is quite scary.’

Animal Geographic will not be the first time the experimental couple use animals as metaphors. In their first two productions, 2 Come to Pass and Two of Us, cats and cicadas became symbols of abstract ideas. However, they are convinced Animal Geographic is their most mature and profound work to date. After all those animal antics then, do they consider man so superior to other animals that he can claim to be lord of all? Wong thinks so and lights on reproduction as a simple example: ‘In the animal world they don’t have a climax – they wouldn’t say “Oh wow, that was great sex!” They just want to reproduce. But humans do – we need to fulfil ourselves both mentality and physically because we have a soul.’ Amornsomboon, on the contrary, recalls The Matrix and Agent Smith’s theory that humans are collectively a virus that ‘moves to an area and multiplies until every natural resource is consumed and the only way to survive is to spread to another area. We may be superior but we are still in the same category – and what can humans boast about anyway? According to scientists if there is a nuclear explosion, a cockroach is more likely to survive than a human.’ Isn’t that a bit pessimistic? ‘No it is not. We can learn from it and live more humbly,’ he says.

Animal Geographic : HK City Hall. June 6, 7, 10-14 at 8pm. Tickets are $180, $120 from URBTIX, 2734 9009. In Cantonese with English surtitles.