“Di-dar” is the song that accompanies the audience as they file into the auditorium at the Kwai Tsing Theatre in Kwai Chung for Black Comedy Di-Dar, Windmill Grass Theatre’s new Cantonese music theatre work. Like Wong’s song title, the “Di-Dar” here is also displayed in English.
Eric Kot – a respected comedian and one half of the legendary 1990s DJ and rap duo Softhard – hams it up with his Confucian beard as the unprincipled but pragmatic head teacher who has been in the job for more than 40 years.
Addressing the student body (the audience) during assembly, Kot declares in his trademark nasal voice that, since students are so unenthusiastic about the new Chinese orchestra, a bribe is being offered.
Sign up, and the demerits in your school record will be erased, or even converted to commendations. This is not a time for moral exactitude.
To inspire students, the principal invites a player of a traditional Chinese instrument called the suona to perform. Played brilliantly by the virtuoso Ma Wai-him (whose day job is principal suona of the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra), it is nonetheless a terrible choice that shows the principal’s ignorance of Hong Kong Chinese culture.
Called di dar in Cantonese, the double-reeded woodwind instrument is most often associated with the distinct sounds of Taoist or Buddhist funeral rites. At the school, Ma’s piercing notes call forth the spirit of former student Ah Sing (played by film actor Kaki Sham), who died in the 1990s and whose inconvenient death – from dancing too much after drinking alcohol – had been brushed under the carpet during the intervening years.
A Taoist exorcist called Ah Long (played by co-writer Joey Leung), called in by the principal to rid the school of the ghost, turns out to be one of Ah Sing’s three dancing pals.
The other two are both teachers at the school, including the terrifying discipline mistress Miss Tong (the effortlessly funny Luna Shaw), who is actually quite docile when she is alone with her lover, the principal.
All of the above plays out in the first half-hour or so of a nearly three-hour-long, intermission-free production that, aided by cinematic projections in-between scenes, has no dull moments.
But where is the music? Apart from a flashback to Ah Sing and his friends practising to a recording of “Heat Waves Lalala”, a rather cringeworthy 1992 anthem to carefree optimism, the first part has no tunes.
There is no need to worry. The music – and dancing – is there in spades during the final hour.
There is a farcical episode during which everyone, including the ghost, has to help Ah Long conduct a complicated Taoist rite known as “Breaking the Hell’s Gate” at the funeral of a triad boss. But Ah Sing decides to have some fun afterwards. He possesses the principal and leads a spirited performance of “Heat Waves Lalala” in the funeral hall.
And so a band is formed, with everyone, dead and alive, finally fulfilling their secret dreams of pop stardom. Called RIP, they perform one 1990s Cantopop song after another in the last half-hour of the play and have everyone in stitches with altered, funeral-themed lyrics.
(At no point do they sing Wong’s “Di-Dar”, although there is a link: in the original music video of the song, Wong is made up to look like a zombie, and some of the original lyrics refer to out-of-body experiences.)
Beyond the dirty jokes, the frequent swearing and the hilarious plot, Black Comedy Di-Dar has a serious side. In one rare scene when the mood turns sombre, Ah Long challenges the principal over the death of Ah Sing.
“You did not allow us to mourn. You did not allow us to remember,” he says, powerful words that resonate with how Hong Kong has yet had a chance to openly address the social traumas of the recent past.
The work’s satire of the education system is subtle, but there is no holding back when it comes to confronting the taboo of death and superstition. In so doing, this cleverly layered show also questions just what constitutes Chinese culture. Is there any reason why funeral rites and Cantopop – despite its mongrel influences – should not constitute part of the school syllabus?
“Black Comedy Di-Dar”, Windmill Grass Theatre, Kwai Tsing Theatre Auditorium. Reviewed: Aug 10.