Japanese actress and director Haruka Ashida Ostley is collaborating with Filipino-Chinese writer Crystal Koo and Hong Kong-based Burnt Mango Theatre Productions to present The Foundling, a three-act play about the assimilation of a feral child, Wendy, into a Hong Kong family, as narrated by the family’s Filipino domestic helper Maricel.

Abandoned by her parents and raised by dogs, fourteen-year-old Wendy has been adopted into her uncle’s family. Her canine upbringing makes it difficult for anyone to truly accept her, but it is her inability to comprehend human language which gains their trust. Slowly Wendy uncovers a different kind of abandonment in her new home, a place of secret frustrations, until an event makes her presence in the family become more crucial than ever.

The play centers thematically on the lack of true dialogue among people living in a modern city like Hong Kong, where means of communication abound but opportunities are deferred by human artifice, such as class hierarchy or the concept of saving face. With a lead character outside human society and a narrator who is a marginalized member of the Hong Kong community, the play aims to examine how humanity has silenced itself into “civilized” society from the point of view of the voiceless.

Actress and director Haruka Ashida Ostley believes in keeping theatre relevant. There are silent masses of people that fill the cracks of a city as metropolitan as Hong Kong, whether they are workers laid off by the economic crisis, domestic helpers, neglected wives, or even teenagers. But these people have become so entrenched in their marginalized state that it is easy to forget that they have their own stories to tell. To Ashida Ostley, a character like Wendy is precisely what can defamiliarise the audience’s perception of communication and domestic harmony and the role that everyone plays in those arenas.

scrīptwriter Crystal Koo has always known what it is like to be in the minority, having been born and raised in Manila by Chinese parents. The Foundling began as a short story about alienation in metropolitan Hong Kong, taking place not in an expatriate setting that would more predictably lend itself to such themes, but deliberately in the more local setting of a Chinese household. The emotional impact of not being able to belong is fundamentally the same whether it is caused by race, culture, class, or strife in relationships. This is something that she has made sure is unmistakable in the story, in that every character in the play is just as abandoned as Wendy.

When Ashida Ostley approached Koo to develop the short story into a full-length scrīpt, it was the beginning of a collaboration that would involve sitting down with Filipino domestic helpers in Central on a Sunday, nightly editing of the scrīpt, and finding new input during rehearsals. What they were most concerned about was telling a story about people – what each character would do and what can be told from each individual arc.

To Hofan Chau, the founder of Burnt Mango Theatre Productions, this focus on characters is crucial, as each member of the cast is responsible for understanding and embodying their character as fully as possible. Burnt Mango believes that theatre is an opportunity to “live in the present moment” on stage, and rehearses with techniques such as contact improvisation and Viewpoints. Since its conception in 2003 as a “nomadic international theatre collaborative,” Burnt Mango has created original works with this philosophy in the US, the UK, Poland, France, and Hong Kong.

The cast of The Foundling are Haruka Ashida Ostley, Hofan Chau, Joshua Wolper, Amy Tam, and Andrew Huang.

The Foundling will be staged at 8pm from February 12 to 14 (Thursday to Saturday), and at 3pm on February 14 (Saturday) at the Fringe Theatre. The show will be performed in English.

Tickets are priced at $180 for adults, $150 for Fringe Club members, and $120 for students. They are available at HK Ticketing box offices located at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, the Fringe Club, AsiaWorld-Expo and The Academy’s Landmark Heritage Campus -Bethanie, as well as Tom Lee Music Stores.

Telephone bookings can be made on 3128 8288. Internet bookings can be made at http://www.hkticketing.com/Ticketek/eng/event/nswcms_event.asp?id=2712&Title=The%20Foundling.

More information can be found at http://www.burntmango.org/foundling/index.htm.

Hi, My name is Haruka Osltey. I am very excited to finally join the community, and becoming an official artist member.  It is always to nice to see people who are passionate with what they are doing. I love it. It is so inspiring to meet people and talk with others who want to collaborate. 

Up coming performance by A Burnt Mango Theatre Production

Location: Fringe Theatre
2 Lower Albert Road Central, Hong Kong
Date and Time: 12 - 14 February, 2009 - 8pm
14 February - 3pm

Abandoned by her parents and raised by dogs, fourteen-year-old Wendy has been adopted into her uncle ’s family. Her canine upbringing makes it difficult for anyone to truly accept her, but it is her inability to comprehend human language which gains their trust. Slowly Wendy uncovers a different kind of abandonment in her new home, for it is a place of secret frustrations, until an event makes her presence in the family become more crucial than ever.

Wendy 自小被父母遺棄,被狗養大,十四歲時才被叔叔一家收養。所有人都因為她的「不正常」而沒法真正接納她,不過,亦因為她不懂人類語言,令這家人對她產生了特別的信任。一面學習過人類生活,她逐漸發現這個「正常」的家充滿著冷漠和虛偽,她感到再度被遺棄，只是形式不同而已。直至一件事發生,令她在這個家中變得前所未有地重要,這個家,亦從此改變。

Performed in English.