“From Stage to Street”: Alice Theatre Laboratory’s Kafkaesque Aesthetics and Experiments in Democratizing the Creative Process
Bernice Chan* and Huiwen Shi**
Abstract
Inspired by Kafka’s works, the Alice Theatre Laboratory, a renowned theatre company in Hong Kong, premiered Seven Boxes Possessed of Kafka in 2008. The production fuses the Kafkaesque physicality with the essence of Japanese Butoh, resulting in a distinctive aesthetic style that reflects the company’s perceptions of Hong Kong and its theatre. This paper selects and discusses key productions of the company that are influenced or inspired by Kafka, both thematically and stylistically. By chronicling the company’s essential works in the past 15 years, the article showcases how this experimental theatre company presents its unique view on contemporary Hong Kong society’s alienation, absurdity and fantasy all at once, which stands out among its peers. In addition, through an in-depth interview, this paper attempts to unwrap how Andrew Chan, the director, organically collaborates with his creative team made up of devising performers, scenographers and composers, to democratize the creative process and to recreate the world of Kafkaesque tragic comedy.
Keywords: Alice Theatre Laboratory, Hong Kong Theatre, Kafka, devising, butoh
Background
Theatre artists’ engagement with Kafka and the Kafkaesque has a long history[1] that is not without strain. Martin Puchner insightfully states in his introduction to Kafka and the Theater that, at best, Kafka and the theater have had a history of contest, most visibly registered in the seemingly unending failures of theatrical Kafka adaptations and also perhaps in their few successes” (163). He argues that, to a certain extent, Kafka’s resistance to the theatre is part of the reason why the theatre could not resist returning to him for inspiration. Shawn-Marie Garrett echoes that it is “commonplace that dramatic adaptations of Kafka rarely ‘work’, either on their own terms or as representations of the sources, nor are they as compelling as a solitary reader’s experience” (252).
It is true that reading Kafka has the advantage of entering a state of solitary dwelling, in that the reader is given the opportunity to ponder over his or her modern existence and, by extension, its absurdity. Moreover, almost all of Kafka’s works, partly unfinished, partly unsatisfactory to their own creator, are to be understood metaphorically; therefore, the unfolding of them on stage could be highly problematic, as the theatre is often tasked to make the abstract concrete to its audience, to provide a version of interpretation or explanation, or to be dialogical. For instance, even in Samuel Beckett’s work, however absurd it is, the dialogic nature of drama is easier to render than that of Kafka’s conceptional and metaphorical.
In this paper, we present a case study of Hong Kong Alice Theatre Laboratory’s diverse works inspired by Kafka that span over a decade. We integrate field work, in-depth interview and textual analysis to ensure a rigorous critical study of the theatre’s (re)presentation of the Kafkaesque. We argue that the theatre company’s efforts to decentralize Kafka, paradoxically, make Kafka ever more present and relevant to contemporary Hong Kong. By integrating fictional and nonfictional works by and about Kafka, encouraging actors/actresses to interpret Kafka in personal ways while devising their acting and blurring the line between performers and audience, Alice Theatre Laboratory (abbreviated as ATL hereafter) continues to democratize the creative process for both its actors and its audience, making Kafka a haunting yet indispensable reflection on our contemporary existence. In addition, the paper explains how Andrew Chan, the artistic director of the theatre company, organically collaborates with his creative team that is made up of devising performers, scenographers and composers, to study the world of Kafkaesque tragic comedy by adapting Kafka’s modernist classics to the local context. Essentially, we wish to demonstrate ATL as a curious but important case in China and Asia where Kafka is successfully manifested on stage in a most original way.
Alice Theatre Laboratory: A Rare Case in Hong Kong’s Theatre Landscape
Alice Theatre Laboratory (ATL), currently a three-year grant company of the Hong Kong Arts Development Council, was founded in 2003 and was formerly known as the Alice Education Studio. In the early stages of the company’s development, its main purpose was to promote theatre education in schools. Inspired by the main character in the Carroll’s visionary tale Alice in Wonderland, Chan believes that his theatre company could develop and grow like Alice: in a wild and fantastical fashion. This, perhaps not coincidentally, echoes with ATL’s long standing motif of “theatre in education.”
ATL is one of the most influential small theatre organizations in Hong Kong since the late 1990s. Keeping the name “Alice” reflects the company’s intention to uphold its original mission in education, even though it has made a decision to broaden its creative spectrum to experimental productions. For example, devised theatre (Oddey) is the most prominent method used in ATL’s creative processes, and devising is also a long-established methodology of theatre education (Perry; Munk, Yngve and Svein-Erik). ATL’s motto clearly reflects its vision: “The theatre is a laboratory; drama is a reflection of our world; we meet at the theatre to probe how we mortals live and how our worlds work. Through learning hard, we will strive to break away from the theatre of yesterday” (ATL).
Chan believes that, although he is not a mathematician, every creation is, in fact, a form of “aesthetic arithmetic”: he can create art pieces that resemble perfect calculations by using the theatre as a field of experimentation and working with his devising performers on specific themes. He and his actor team often spent months doing in-depth research and having passionate discussions about Kafka’s works. Compared to other ways of seeing and understanding the world, such as film or literature, using theatre as an entry point is a relatively unconventional approach, especially in a place like Hong Kong. This might be attributed to Chan’s upbringing.
In our interview,[2] Chan openly stressed that in his earlier years he was not interested in what he learnt at school but was fascinated by alternative ways of educating himself. The pressure of growing up as an only child made him reflect on what kind of person he wanted to be, and at the same time, he was determined to go against family expectations; therefore, he took subjects such as literature and history in secondary school. It was also during this period that he learnt about Kafka and indulged himself in Kafka’s surreal stories. Inspired by a column in a Hong Kong music magazine called Monitor Bi Weekly[3] (1987–93), which featured personal recommendations by various Biweeklyiters, Chan bought his first copy of Kafka’s novel, The Metamorphosis. Intriguingly, The Metamorphosis affirmed Chan’s self-image. He learnt that even if you are “different,” you can still be understood and have your own channels of communication. For Chan, reading Kafka also normalized being “alien” in society. To a certain extent, this kind of “being understood” comforted a young man and allowed Kafka’s world to fully unfold in his mind. Chan’s fascination with Kafka became almost an obsession, and he could not resist sharing his thoughts about Kafka to people around him. To Chan, Kafka was a strangely effective portal of communication.
After tracing his own personal history with Kafka, Chan spoke of his creation of Seven Boxes Possessed of Kafka (abbreviated as Seven Boxes hereafter), an award-winning theatre production that was performed initially in Hong Kong and was invited to rerun in Shanghai, Beijing, Taiwan and Hong Kong multiple times. “From the very beginning, I knew I did not want any performer to play Kafka,” affirms Chan in the interview, and he delivers what he promises. An ardent reader of Kafka himself, Chan requires actors to read Kafka’s works and establish a solid relationship with him,[4] while rejecting any one of them embodying Kafka as a concrete character on stage. In fact, he forbids it.
Fragmented Kafka: ATL’s Trail-blazing Initiative
Seven Boxes Possessed of Kafka
Seven Boxes premiered at the Hong Kong Fringe Club’s Fringe Theatre in Central in 2008. However, the Kafkaesque aesthetic and the concept of selecting themes or plays for productions have influenced the company’s development, making ATL a unique landscape in Hong Kong’s contemporary theatre. Over twenty years, ATL has staged challenging works, such as Bertolt Brecht’s Fear and Misery of the Third Reich, August Strindberg’s A Dream Play, García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, just to name a few. These choices of high literature are unique in Hong Kong where popular entertainment dominates the local theatrical scene and guarantees better box office.
One important feature of ATL’s rendering of Kafka is its efforts to decentralize and democratize the creative process. While most stage performances of Kafka feature a single story such as The Trial, The Hunger Artist and The Metamorphosis, ATL ambitiously encompasses all his works, including but not limited to his letters, diary, biographies, fiction and prose. Through a myriad of texts and interplay of fictional and real characters, the audience is invited to piece together their image of Kafka, mimicking the experience of solitary reading.
As is mentioned before, since its debut of Seven Boxes in 2008, ATL has rerun the play on numerous occasions, both in and outside of Hong Kong, while gaining critical acclaim and audience recognition at the same time. The productions fuse the Kafkaesque physicality with the essence of Japanese butoh, resulting in a distinctive aesthetic style that reflects the company’s perceptions of Hong Kong and its theatre. This paper selects and discusses key productions of the company that are heavily influenced by Kafka’s classic fiction.[5]
In Seven Boxes, Kafka’s three sisters are played by three female performers, who form a chorus. They are also reminiscent of Shakespeare’s witches in Macbeth, embodying madness as well as prophecy. Their movements are awkward and candid, capturing the state of everyday life. Yet, they also carry with them a strong sense of surrealism and oddity: interspersing their voices with the sound of hysterical laughter, creating a meta-narrative around their brother’s life. In doing so, the sisters draw the audience closer to Kafka’s world and perspective.

Speaking of the sister role, we all know that in The Metamorphosis, the sister is a crucial supporting character: she provides spiritual and physical support for the protagonist, Gregor Samsa. From the beginning, she shows her concern, brings Gregor food, cleans up his room, but, eventually, she decides to ignore him and prioritize her own growth. The sister’s change of attitude corresponds to Gregor’s physical transformation, and her own “metamorphosis” parallels her brother’s while also cruelly reflecting the reality of human nature. Rationally accepting her own change, she alienates her own feelings to her brother and, eventually, stands up for her individuality. This is a typical Kafkaesque absurdity. Interestingly, Chan confessed that he has always wanted to have a sister; hence, the roles of sisters in Kafka’s works are of primal importance to him. From Kafka to Gregor Samsa and to Chan himself, the sister figure becomes a symbol of the desire to communicate with the outside world, but the harsh reality is that it also proves the impossibility of genuine communication.
In our interview, Chan repeatedly emphasized his obsession with the idea of sharing. Although his attempts to share Kafka’s works with his classmates at school was not necessarily appreciated by them, to the extent that it often put him in many awkward situations, he remains passionate about Kafka and never stops his fascination with the author. This passion has carried on in the fusion of theatre and education in a special form that demonstrates the importance of the performer’s participation in the creative process. In a sense, his theatre opens up a free space for performers to educate themselves too. Rather than simply fulfilling the needs of the director, the performers actively contribute as researchers and establish their unique relationship with the whole production. Chan very consciously decentralizes his “director’s authority” throughout the creative process. Performers also do not just focus on a single character or are made responsible for only the parts they play. Instead, they are asked to read Kafka’s stories and respond to them personally in a seminar form. Their active participation plays an important part in making the production into a co-creation. Actors also have a holistic view of Kafka and the production, giving Chan their thoughts and inspiration while devising the play.
Essentially, Seven Boxes is very textual, and intentionally so. The play is full of quotes from Kafka’s works and is made very fragmented though carefully “boxed” into categories. The play is a powerful revelation of Kafka’s told and untold stories, fusing fiction with nonfiction, the impersonal with the personal, the real with the surreal. The work contains an episodic structure that collects fragments from the performers’ reports encompassing many aspects of Kafka: box of father and son, box of penalty, box of animals, box of love, box of prophecy and fable, box of labyrinth, box of death. The literary genres included are diverse: unsent and sent letters, fictional works, love letters, diary, memoirs from friends and so on. The concept of unpacking the seven boxes, inspired by Peter Greenaway’s film The Tulse Luper Suitcases, is a symbolic gesture of rediscovering Kafka, unearthing him as an ever-present and haunting figure, and reminding the audience of the Kafka that exists in them.

Throughout the creative process, Chan deliberately placed himself in a supporting role rather than in a traditionally authoritative “director” mode. He was more like an observer, an educator and a discussant when working with his performers. He stressed that the performers had to work out their own understanding of Kafka in thorough individual, private studies. In addition to unpacking and sharing their interpretations on stage, the performers also published their research, personal reaction and thoughts on Kafka in the programme. Indeed, the production programme reads more like an art appreciation guidebook.[6] Once again, the programme itself also demonstrates the textual quality of the show and an eagerness to share in addition to a two-hour stage performance. Eventually, a dual performance on stage and on page becomes the practice of the company for each of their productions. Although not all of the performance texts of the ATL were written through a devising process, the uniqueness of the performers acting as researchers and co-creators at the same time serves as an aesthetic strategy and creates a “meta” perspective for them to examine the relationship between the works and the context of contemporary society. In this way, their works motivate the audience to engage both intellectually and actively, think and participate, effectively integrating educational elements into theatre. As a result, ATL’s productions naturally lean towards a blend of artistic expression and intellectual exploration.
One more thing that deserves our attention is the influence of Japanese butoh. From Seven Boxes onwards, due to an experimental suggestion from a costume and makeup designer, the pale white faces of the performers have become a signature for the company’s productions. Like masks, the white faces allow the performers to move flexibly and interchangeably between different characters and even narrators, while establishing an eerie distance for reflection. This styling makes easy associations with the Japanese dance theatre butoh, which is a unique form of dance developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s (Baird and Candelario 2).
Searching for a new form of dance and questioning identity in a post-war society, butoh’s beauty is provocative while, at the same time, revealing the pain of human conditions. However, despite the fact that Chan is into Japanese’s Avant Garde theatre and the world of the grotesque, he strives to preserve darkness and everyman’s struggles that Kafka portrays. Somehow, Chan’s versions of Kafka synchronize with the spirit of butoh, which questions human existence. The exploration of bizarre physical language in Seven Boxes creates an alienating mood that immerses the audience into the Kafkaesque vibes. The homogeneous white faces without individual expression reinforce this collective absurdity. It is noteworthy that Mirjam Tröster (168–69) regards the play as an act of unmasking the city of Hong Kong as they are “troubled” faces under the “multicolored neon lights,” which is quite telling.

The effective and strategic use of white face make-up explicitly demonstrates the reality which Kafka struggles to counteract. This aesthetic approach becomes a long-term exploration of the company’s artistic endeavors as it has been used in almost every production since Seven Boxes. While the effectiveness may be varied from production to production, depending on the theme of the works, it has definitely helped the company to establish a unique aesthetic language for the contemporary stage of Hong Kong.
Kafka’s Theatrical Metamorphoses in Hong Kong: ATL’s Two Recent Experiments
She Who Encountered Kafka and A Pilgrimage to Kafka
Since its premiere, Seven Boxes has toured in Shanghai, Beijing and Taipei, and it has been restaged in Hong Kong on a number of occasions. Reflecting the relationship between education and theatre, this particular work continues to explore the possibilities of making “participation” and “sharing” artistic strategies each time of rerunning the performance.
The production of She Who Encountered Kafka in the New Vision Arts Festival 2014, which was staged in the lobby of the Kwai Tsing Theatre in Hong Kong, allowed the audience to participate in a ritual with Kafka through improvisation, physical presentation, recitation and singing, as well as through interactions with the installation. Situated in an exhibition-like environment, the work further embodies the concept of the decentralization of creation by opening the interpretation of the stage space and demolishing the stage boundaries, further blurring the distance between performers and audience.

In 2018, ATL created the interactive exhibition and journey A Pilgrimage to Kafka. The production took place at various locations in Central (Hong Kong’s heart of finances and businesses), with different routes mapping different aspects of Kafka, and the destination of the journey was the Fringe Club, where the premiere of Seven Boxes was staged. This, in a sense, completed a circle of life for ATL’s rendering of Kafka. In this particular performance, audiences followed the performers from the theatre to the streets,[7] then routing back to the theatre again, mapping the Kafkaesque in the “central” stage of the city.

When the boxes of Kafka fell into what Hong Kong residents view as ordinary urban space, and when the performers, together with their audience, played in front of the ordinary pedestrians, the definitions of a theatre and its audience were made ever more subtle and elusive. Apart from the audience, who already knew the route of the performance from a map given at the beginning of the show, spectators joined in impromptu, and curious passers-by entered the theatre space unaware. The performers, their audience and the general public all became integral parts of the play. In this version, improvisation played an even more prominent role, with the structure of the performance constantly evolving in response to changing scenes and the varied reactions of the participants.

On this occasion, the situational theatre demanded the performers to maintain a state of alienation, which made the performance a very challenging one. This journey was, perhaps deliberately, a non-directorial performance. A Pilgrimage to Kafka is a collaboration between the performers and the audience, allowing Kafkaesque absurdity to emerge in the bustling streets of Hong Kong, penetrating Chan’s notion of sharing in an even broader context. The presentation resonates with the company’s motto, “Change the world by taking action, with our pure mind and virginal flesh.”
Conclusion
In a place that prides itself as a financial center and Asia’s world city, Kafka often seems irrelevant and a stranger. However, Andrew Chan and his ATL are able to juxtapose the artistic, the educational and the intellectual organically into its rendering of the Kafkaesque through experimentation with butoh, participatory theatre and emphasis on the original texts. ATL’s audience is provoked to think about their life in this fast-paced cosmopolitan topos where humans are increasingly demanded to behave and work like efficient and emotionless machines.
Max Brod, Kafka’s friend and publisher, noted that the author viewed his novel The Trial as incomplete. Kafka believed that the trial of Joseph K could perpetually continue, an obvious critique of the endless and absurd nature of bureaucracy. What ATL presents to its spectators is Kafka’s absence while he permeates, on and off the stage. It rejects a single interpretation (which can be a form of intellectual tyranny), hands over the power of devising to its crew and shakes its audience into considering their contemporary state of existence.
Endnotes
[1] See Shawn-Marie Garrett’s “The Kafka Theatre of New York”’ for a selected production history of Kafka since the 1980s (257–60).
[2] The in-depth interview with Andrew Chan took place on 26 February 2024. It lasted 2.5 hours.
[3] Monitor Bi Weekly was an independent bi-weekly magazine on music published in Hong Kong between 1987 and 1993. Its Chinese title was 助聽器, which literally means “hearing aid.”
[4] According to Chan, each actor had to give an in-depth presentation on Kafka’s work to fellow actors. One of the actors even reported that reading Kafka helped him reflect his strained relationship with his own father.
[5] Performances that are obviously inspired by Kafka are Seven Boxes Possessed of Kafka (2008), The Hong Kong Three Sisters (2017), A Pilgrimage to Kafka (2018), and The Visit (2022).
[6] In the 2021 rerun of Seven Boxes, the printed programme has 31 pages, which include a poem by Chan, two scholars’ in-depth introduction and interpretation of Kafka, and the reflections of the seven actors, among other contributions. The programme is more like a literary magazine than a simple, brief and functional performance programme.
[7] It is important to note that this form of performing in different locations on the streets, spontaneously gathering audience and passers-by, was no longer possible due to COVID-19. Chan and his team expressed how fortunate they were to be able to experiment and engage with their audience in 2018, prior to the global pandemic.
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*Bernice Chan is currently General Manager of the International Association of Theatre Critics (Hong Kong) and an examiner for the Hong Kong Arts Development Council (Drama Committee). She is also the Vice-President of the International Association of Libraries, Museums, Archives and Documentation Centres of the Performing Arts (SIBMAS) and the President of SAGE Players Limited, an organization focusing on promoting professional theatre education for senior citizens.

**Huiwen Shi is a bilingual educator, researcher and writer. Her research interests lie in contemporary poetics, Hong Kong theatre, digital storytelling and literary education. She has published extensively as a literary scholar, theatre critic and English language educator. She is currently Senior Lecturer at CPCE, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. In addition to formal research and teaching, she writes poetry in English and theatre reviews in Chinese.
Copyright © 2024 Bernice Chan and Huiwen Shi
Critical Stages/Scènes critiques, #30, Dec. 2024
e-ISSN: 2409-7411
This work is licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution International License CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.