{"id":33252,"date":"2026-03-03T21:37:36","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T13:37:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=33252"},"modified":"2026-03-03T21:37:36","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T13:37:36","slug":"review-sebastian-kaisers-the-drunkard-adaptation-is-chaotic-timely-and-fiercely-alive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=33252","title":{"rendered":"Review | Sebastian Kaiser\u2019s The Drunkard adaptation is chaotic, timely and fiercely alive."},"content":{"rendered":"
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Sebastian Kaiser\u2019s stage adaptation<\/span> of Liu Yichang\u2019s The Drunkard<\/em> is as chaotic and electrifying as an exhilarating night out.<\/div>\n
This two-and-a-half-hour commission for the Hong Kong Arts Festival<\/span> stays true to the 1962 novel\u2019s rebellious spirit while freely adapting the stream-of-consciousness ramblings of a struggling writer drinking himself into oblivion.<\/div>\n
Among the many liberties taken is the splitting of the unnamed protagonist into two parts, played by actress Sze Wei and actor Yeung Hop-to.<\/p>\n
The former is rather too dashing for the role, but she is, after all, the more lucid half of the Drunkard, still shakily hanging on to his lonely, avant-garde ideals.<\/p>\n
Yeung, in contrast, is in total shambles. His interpretation of the jaded anti-hero is an impressively uninhibited display of pathetic clowning and wheedling pleas to beautiful women that ends in dark despair.<\/p>\n
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<\/div>Yeung Hop-to in The Drunkard at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre\u2019s Studio Theatre. Photo: Eric Hong<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The play begins not with the famous line \u201cAnother day of rain, on my rusty emotions,\u201d but with five actresses on a bare stage, bellowing, \u201cWar! War! War!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
![\"Yeung](\"https:\/\/img.i-scmp.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/fit=contain,width=1024,format=auto\/sites\/default\/files\/d8\/images\/canvas\/2026\/03\/03\/5808de1a-236a-4828-a4d2-bb235fc92879_f60200c9.jpg\" "\\"Yeung")
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