The Found in Translation series (a collaboration between Pao Arts Center, CHUANG Stage, and Asian American Theatre Artists of Boston) is thrilled to open its second season with a staged reading of Ethan Luk’s Flight of a Legless Bird. Since the play is grounded in the “golden age” of Cantopop, we asked playwright Ethan Luk and director Wilson Wang to share more about the inspiration behind the play and its characters.

Give us some background on the Cantopop scene that grounds this play.

Flight of a Legless Bird is set in the 1980s to early 2000s cantopop and film culture within Hong Kong. Often referred to as the “golden age,” this era reflects an emergence of pop stars and film auteurs that not only thrusted Hong Kong culture towards global attention and recognition, but also radically reevaluated Hong Kong-ness through their work and expanded the capabilities of artistic mediums. Even in the present, many Hong Kongers look back to the 1980s-2000s scene with fondness and nostalgia in a time of severe political vicissitudes. One of the challenges within the Cantopop and film culture the play surveys is what Ackbar Abbas calls “déjà disparu,” in which he argued that Hong Kong is a subject of elusiveness that “is always on the verge of disappearance.” This play not only memorializes a bygone, evasive culture that remains alive only through memory and intergenerational transfer, but also documents how artists of that era have used their practice as technologies of the self that redescribe their identities against a rapidly changing geopolitical landscape. 

Tell us about Leslie Cheung and Anita Mui and how they inspired the characters.

Leslie Cheung and Anita Mui were part of the vanguard of the 1980s-early 2000s Hong Kong cantopop scene. I was not only inspired by their iconic status, but also how they consistently challenged norms of gender and sexuality with their inventive, even transgressive, modes of performance. Most of all, Leslie and Anita were inspiring to me because of their friendship. Their friendship across the highs and lows of their careers reflects a true dedication to reciprocal care, rapport, and generosity. 

Tell us about who inspired the character, Robin.

Robin was inspired by a writing partner I met through New York Theater Workshop’s Mind the Gap, an intergenerational playwriting program in which teens and elders interview each other to write plays inspired by each other’s lives. I had the opportunity to interview and collaborate with Encke, a living filmmaker in New York City, over the course of the three-month process. The character of Robin was formed out of our talks and based on Encke’s personal stories.

Performance Dates:

Friday, June 2, 2023 - 7:00 PM + Post-show conversation

Saturday, June 3, 2023 - 2:00PM

Saturday, June 3, 2023 - 7:00PM + Post-show “Red Heels” Cantopop Dance Party

Pricing : Free, suggested donation $10

Found in Translation is a collaboration between Asian American Theatre Artists of Boston (AATAB), CHUANG Stage, and Pao Arts Center. Established in 2021, Found in Translation celebrates the power and complexities of being multilingual, immigrants, or identifying as Asian American in Greater Boston through theatre.

The Found in Translation Series is supported by the New England Foundation for the Arts' Public Art for Spatial Justice program, with funding from the Barr Foundation.

Season 2 of the Found in Translation Series is supported by the New England Foundation for the Arts' Public Art for Spatial Justice program, with funding from the Barr Foundation.