Acclaimed Hong Kong Playwright Speaks Out Amid Theatre Censorship

Hong Kong's leading playwright, Candace Chong Mui Ngam, was in Tokyo in September for the Japanese production of her 2011 play Wild Boar. It was staged by the Bungakuza theater company under the title "Nora Buta."

"It's complicated. When I wrote this, I thought it would take another twenty or thirty years for Hong Kong to deteriorate this badly — but reality outpaced my imagination," she reflected during our interview.

After the performance, I asked for her impressions. What struck me most were the words she delivered like a bitter confession: "What's happening in Hong Kong now is even more hideous" than what's portrayed in her play.

Freedom or Survival

Chong is one of Hong Kong's most acclaimed playwrights, with seven Best Script wins at the Hong Kong Drama Awards. Her best-known work, May 35th, portrays the anguish of an elderly couple whose only son was killed in the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen crackdown. They are denied even the basic right to mourn.

Since Beijing imposed the Hong Kong National Security Law in 2020, mentioning Tiananmen has become taboo in Hong Kong, just as it is in mainland China. Today, May 35th is effectively banned.

Wild Boar, too, has been absent from Hong Kong stages for more than a decade. Its Tokyo revival ran from September 9 to 21. The story unfolds like this:

In a city undergoing redevelopment, a professor probing the hidden, uncomfortable history of the project goes missing. A newspaper editor attempts to expose the truth in the name of free speech — but is shot and seriously injured by townspeople who support the project to protect their livelihoods.

Wounded and disillusioned, the editor compromises with the government and agrees to bury the truth once again.

People line up in front of the courthouse to attend the trial of pro-democracy activists charged with violating the Hong Kong National Security Law, while police officers stand guard. November 19, 2024, Hong Kong. (©Kyodo)

Fear of Being 'Erased'

"No one ever directly says no to my work. But they won't choose my scripts, and theaters won't provide a stage. In the end, the plays simply can't be performed."

That is how Chong described the climate in Hong Kong.

"If you criticize the government, you risk endangering your family, your partner, your neighbors. So everyone censors themselves. And then comes the informing."

Chong continued, "People denounce others, calculating that eliminating someone else will benefit them. How ugly Hong Kong's society has become."

Earlier in September, she shared a painful experience on social media. She had given an interview in 2024 for the 40th anniversary of her alma mater, the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. But the video was never released. She was pressured not to appear at the curtain call of her own play. Her name was even removed from the production's poster.

Like the professor in Wild Boar, Chong herself faced the threat of being erased. With determination, she went public, even posting a mock epitaph — "Candace Chong Mui Ngam, Hong Kong Theatre Life 2001–2025" — alongside her own "memorial portrait."

Free and Resilient

In Japan, where freedom of expression is protected, she found herself confronted once more with a play she had written 14 years earlier.

The play ends with a wild boar hunt. During the chase, an idealistic young reporter realizes that everyone was once a boar — before the government pulled out their tusks and tamed them. The boar, Chong says, is "a symbol of freedom, wildness, raw vitality, and resilience."

What made Nora Buta remarkable was that Bungakuza member Indy Chang, originally from Hong Kong, created the Japanese script and directed the production. Some fans even traveled from Hong Kong to see it. Chong called the production "passionate, powerful, and deeply moving."

A Bloodline of Theatre

Born in China's Fujian Province in 1976, Chong is the daughter of a traditional theatre director who was imprisoned for four years during the Cultural Revolution. The family fled to Hong Kong in 1978, where Chong discovered modern theatre.

In our interview, her voice grew strongest when she spoke about the stage:

"Theatre may be a kind of faith for me. A theatre is like a church. Even if I cannot enter the church, the faith — that is, creation — will continue." She seemed to be speaking as much to herself as to me. It was just ten days after posting her "epitaph."

Back in Hong Kong, she later wrote on social media: "Breathing the outside air was a relief, but my true place is on Hong Kong's stage. I know what I must do from now on."

The wild boar has risen again.

(Read the article in Japanese.)

Author: Kinya Fujimoto, The Sankei Shimbun