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《三角志》（第97期）刊载由赖勇衡撰写之《山下的证词》剧评

《山下的证词》剧评：合成的身份．嵌空的纪录

纪录总是合成的。纪录剧场《山下的证词》以南亚裔香港人的生存实况为题材，透过自述、采访、政府档案、书籍和影视片段等不同媒介构成主要内容。虽然这次创作以社会现实的问题为主体，但创作者同时也将自身的纪录者位置呈现在观众眼前，并揭露“纪录”本身的再现结构。天台制作利用即场摄录转播（Live feed） 加上色彩嵌空（Chroma key）的影像合成技术，以简单的绿幕合成及其他特效，配合人偶、照片播报（slide show）和演唱等多种媒介，灵活地组合成丰富生动的演出。

《山下的证词》的内容其实很严肃：一方面指出南亚裔香港人在教育、福利和国借等政策上受到歧视，在主流文化中遭受着种种偏见，在职场上受排斥，另一方面则肯定他们在香港历史中的贡献。或许在政府及很多华裔港人眼中，…

Testimony was reviewed by Bruce Lai in Delta Zhi Magazine. Article is available in Chinese only.

《山下的證詞》劇評：合成的身份．嵌空的紀錄

紀錄總是合成的。紀錄劇場《山下的證詞》以南亞裔香港人的生存實況為題材，透過自述、採訪、政府檔案、書籍和影視片段等不同媒介構成主要內容。雖然這次創作以社會現實的問題為主體，但創作者同時也將自身的紀錄者位置呈現在觀眾眼前，並揭露「紀錄」本身的再現結構。天台製作利用即場攝錄轉播（Live feed） 加上色彩嵌空（Chroma key）的影像合成技術，以簡單的綠幕合成及其他特效，配合人偶、照片播報（slide show）和演唱等多種媒介，靈活地組合成豐富生動的演出。

《山下的證詞》的內容其實很嚴肅：一方面指出南亞裔香港人在教育、福利和…

There is an article about Testimony published in Standnews, written by our dramaturg Sim Fong Lai, about the collision of theatre and image (in Chinese only).

猜猜看，請說出《重慶森林》、《神探》、《三个绑匪七條心》到《志明與春嬌》的共通點。答案是四套電影中均有南亞裔演員。

香港的流行文化中一直不乏南亞裔的身影，但形像單一：黑社會、色鬼及怪人，本地南亞少數族裔為主角的電影少之又少。縱然開埠初期已經有少數族裔在港定居：邊境靠尼泊爾及巴基斯坦警員駐守，港大甚至由印度人成立。他們與香港歷史密不可分，可惜其文化及人數都未能在社會構成巨大的能見度，根據人口普查，少數族裔佔本地人口只有百分之八。…

Testimony Interview on RTHK’s The Saturday Squad

We were interviewed by Annalie Chow for The Saturday Squad on RTHK Radio 3 – you can listen to the recording of the live show.

https://rooftopproductions.hk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/RTHK-Testimony-Rooftop-Productions.mp3

This is just a placeholder, please wait for the real information to be released.

The Furies Variations, RTHK

RTHK discussion of The Furies Variations and a related show that took place in the same week, Mourning Becomes Electra (Theatre Horizon). Programme link: 散場之後：天邊外《傷逝如她》；天台製作《復仇變奏曲》

The Furies Variations, Rooftop Productions Theatre Hong Kong 2018

The Furies Variations, Rooftop Productions Theatre Hong Kong 2018

The Furies Variations, Rooftop Productions Theatre Hong Kong 2018

One Week Until The Furies Variations

A new video of some interviews with did with our actors on one of the subjects we’ve been discussing a lot in rehearsal: where does your sense of justice come from?

Tickets still available, whatsapp us on: 59289701

我们要依据什么原则，才可继续选择正义，而不取最厉害的非正义？ – 柏拉图《理想国》

7-9.12.2018 (星期五至日) 8:00pm

8-9.12.2018 (星期六至日) 3:00pm

葵青剧院黑盒剧场

$200，$150*

*折扣：

全日制学生、60岁或以上的高龄人士、残疾人士及看护人、综合社会保障援助受惠人75折优惠。(票价：$150，数量有限，额满即止。）

​每次购买正价门票5 ​至9张可获95折优惠；10​至19张可获​9折优惠；20张或以上可获85折优惠。

上述购票优惠只可享用其一，请于购票时告知票务人员。

粤语演出 每场均设演后座谈会，欢迎观众留步参加。 门票不设划位。一经确认后不可退票。 敬请准时到达，迟到者需待合适时间才可进场。 天台制作拥有更改节目、场次及座位安排的最终决定权。

复仇女神／仁慈女神／公义／法治／道德／《奥瑞斯提亚三部曲》…

一众复仇女神由天空之神…

我們要依據什麼原則，才可繼續選擇正義，而不取最厲害的非正義？ – 柏拉圖《理想國》

粵語演出

7-9.12.2018 (星期五至日) 8:00pm; 8-9.12.2018 (星期六至日) 3:00pm

葵青劇院黑盒劇場

$200，$150*

*全日制學生、60歲或以上的高齡人士、殘疾人士及看護人、綜合社會保障援助受惠人75折優惠。（數量有限，額滿即止。） 每場均設演後座談會，歡迎觀眾留步參加。 門票不設劃位。一經確認後不可退票。 敬請準時到達，遲到者需 天台製作擁有更改節目、場次及座位安排的最終決定權。

By what further argument could we choose justice before the greatest injustice? – Plato (Republic)

Performance in Cantonese

7-9.12.2018 (Friday to Sunday) 8:00pm 8-9.12.2018 (Saturday to Sunday) 3:00pm

Kwai Tsing Black Box Theatre

$200，$150*

*全日制學生、60歲或以上的高齡人士、殘疾人士及看護人、綜合社會保障援助受惠人75折優惠。（數量有限，額滿即止。） 每場均設演後座談會，歡迎觀眾留步參加。 門票不設劃位。一經確認後不可退票。 敬請準時到達，遲到者需 天台製作擁有更改節目、場次及座位安排的最終決定權。

The Furies Variations Training

The Furies Variations Training

The Furies Variations Training

The Furies Variations Training

The Furies Variations Training

The Furies Variations Training

The Furies Variations Training

The Furies Variations Training

The Furies Variations Training

The Furies Variations Training

One of the biggest challenges for us when working with new technology in theatre is finding ways to make the technology fundamentally serve the functional needs of the show, rather than decorate it superficially. However, integrating technology like this involves a lot more risk. If the ‘technology’ involved is limited to projections in the background etc., then the show can carry on if something fails, and the audience might not even notice. If the ‘technology’ is responsible for the structure, timing, location and audio of the whole show, then if something fails, there is no show any more. So while this makes the use of technology arguably more integrated and innovative, it makes the whole thing a lot scarier to create.

The Development of Lost Shoreline

When we started our creative meetings with the full team for Lost Shoreline, I still didn’t really know what was possible in terms of technology. At that time, I was still planning to create a self-contained app that didn’t require an internet connection to function, and worked more like a multiple-choice adventure game with mp3s and a basic GPS map. About 4 months before the show, the skeleton of an app that I’d made was still only a kind of custom google-maps thing with some audio capability.

However, in the creative meetings we kept coming up against the issue of organising the audience to make sure we didn’t end up with 40 people in a small room at the same time. We were coming up with ways involving probability to try and make it as unlikely as we could, but whatever we did, without a connection between the phones, there would still be a possibility of having the whole audience in the same place at the same time.

Since most of the team didn’t have much experience with this tech, their ideas weren’t limited by what they thought was possible. Even though Michelle and I had some experience from The Beautiful Ones, even I wasn’t exactly sure what was going to be possible for me to implement in time for the show with just me doing the programming. Ideas like ‘make it seem like someone’s phoning them at a specific time, and play audio when they answer’ seem easy to me because it’s mostly interface design, but seem almost impossible if you don’t know how it works. But things that sound simple like ‘send a notification to the closest 4 audience members to a specific location’ is actually much more complex to set up, because to calculate the closest four, you need live access to the location data of all audience phones. Still, not as bad as checking if their photo is of a bird. Anyway, that meant I had to set up a database the store the data from the phones in real time, and we had to make sure everyone had internet access. Luckily the audience was small enough to allow us to use the free version of Firebase for the database and it was much easier to set up than trying to set up my own.

Once we had a database everything became a lot easier to manage, and things felt a lot safer because we were able to make a lot of fundamental changes to the show without having to update the app, by getting data and even audio updates from the database instead. We were able to trigger and change times on the fly during the show in case anything went wrong. Basically, I realised that I should have built everything from the database up, and I pretty much had to rewrite everything I’d done up to this point. This was a great learning experience for me, and I started having more ideas than I could possibly implement – not just for this show, but for other apps as well. However, it was also a bit terrifying because I was learning how to do things for the first time and immediately putting them into an app that had to work perfectly the first time it was used with the full audience.

What The App Does

It would be pretty boring (or very niche) to go over every function in the app, but I want to highlight what I think are some of the cleverer bits.

The app works like a silent disco, with everyone hearing the audio in sync (down to milliseconds), but what you hear depends on your location. There are actors walking around who are also being tracked by GPS. You can see the actor’s location in your app as an animated coloured dot on your map, and if you’re within a certain distance you will hear the audio that relates to that actor. The volume gets louder the closer you get to the actor.

There is an interactive overlay of how the shoreline of Kowloon changed over time with reclamation projects. You can slide to different dates and the map will let you see exactly how the shoreline was at that time, and where you are in relation to it. There’s a subtle soundscape that tries to emulate the sound of the sea according to how close you are to whatever you set the shoreline year to.

Plain map overlay

Satellite map overlay

The timing of events is taken care of by the app so that everything stays in sync. People receive phone calls, dots pop up on the map, new functions get revealed, and like I mentioned before, the closest people to certain locations at certain times get summoned there. Sometimes these all happen together, and sometimes they are determined according to arrival time, or according to location. There is even a system in case two or more people need to stay together for some reason (e.g. carer, child etc.) which can be set up at the start of the show.

All of the phone numbers on the road can be dialled within the app (it has a phone-like interface) in order to hear an audio track that corresponds to the location that number can be found – usually about the street that the number can be found on. We got most of the phone numbers manually by photographing all the places we could, but if someone dialled a number not in the database, then their GPS coordinate at the time they dialled it would be added to another database for checking. These were then added back into the main database after each show, so we gradually built up a full database of the locations of all the phone numbers on the streets – the audience did it for us without even knowing.

If an audience member has a problem, they can use the app to call us directly – we also get their GPS coordinates so we can go straight to their location and help them. Thankfully this was mostly not used, except for a few people requesting battery chargers, or on on occasion someone who was seeing the show for the second time without the app being reset properly. We were able to run directly to them without causing them any delay.

What We Could Improve

One of the biggest problems we encountered was the potential inaccuracy of the GPS. When I first built the GPS-based audio functions, I was using very finely calibrated distance to volume and even panning according to bearing, but in real world testing this proved to be disorientating due to the amount of buildings and footbridges interfering with the GPS signal. This would be a great thing to try in a flat and open space, but it’s not an ideal system in Hong Kong. I had to remove the panning and reduce the sensitivity of the volume a lot to account for the potential inaccuracy, so it was still able to function well enough for our purposes. I considered other ways of detecting user location, from masses of battery powered bluetooth beacons, to ushers in charge of updating individual audience members’ locations… but I think in the end I will go back to giving the user more agency in telling the app where they are and triggering what they want to hear manually, rather than trying to make everything automated.

Another difficulty when working with this level of technology is time. Even though we had more than twice as long as a normal rehearsal period to create the show, it was still crazy for me to try and do the programming and testing on my own, and meant that I couldn’t be involved in as much of the creative content as I would have liked. Because the technical aspects and the content of the show were so mutually dependent, it wasn’t really possible to create the app first and find the content for it, so both sides of things had to develop together. I think this kind of show would benefit from having the process spread out much more to allow time for app development in between meetings, but the current funding/rehearsal model for ‘theatre’ shows like this doesn’t really allow for a process that’s conducive to integrating new technology and content. Not that that will stop us trying. Look out for news of something along these lines coming up…

天台制作创作演员招募 － 新能量系列公开演出

天台制作于2014年由艾浩家及李婉晶成立，冀为发展本地崭新剧场艺术文化，制作反映当下的新派剧场作品。本年12月，天台制作将参与由康文署举办的新能量系列，并制作全新演出。现以工作坊形式，招募有兴趣人士成为创作演员，全部皆有薪演出。

演出大纲：

天台制作成立以来，以不同的剧场模式及创作手法，以历史、学术研究、神话传说、已存文字，及真实故事为内容，探讨当代社会问题及人性，于剧场中引发问题和思考。在《哪来的正义》（暂名）演出计划中，我们尝试透过于历史及文学作品中寻找到的资料，以及当代对法治的应用和学说，探讨（Justice）正义／法律／司法制度／公平等概念。

创作的主要内容，来自西方文化经典－古希腊悲剧家艾斯奇勒斯的《奥瑞斯提亚》（Aeschylus’ Oresteia）、柏拉图的苏格拉底式对话（Plato’s Socratic…

天台製作創作演員招募 － 新能量系列公開演出

天台製作於2014年由艾浩家及李婉晶成立，冀為發展本地嶄新劇場藝術文化，製作反映當下的新派劇場作品。本年12月，天台製作將參與由康文署舉辦的新能量系列，並製作全新演出。現以工作坊形式，招募有興趣人士成為創作演員，全部皆有薪演出。

演出大綱：

天台製作成立以來，以不同的劇場模式及創作手法，以歷史、學術研究、神話傳說、已存文字，及真實故事為內容，探討當代社會問題及人性，於劇場中引發問題和思考。在《哪來的正義》（暫名）演出計劃中，我們嘗試透過於歷史及文學作品中尋找到的資料，以及當代對法治的應用和學說，探討（Justice）正義／法律／司法制度／公平等概念。

創作的主要內容，來自西方文化經典－古希臘悲劇家艾斯奇勒斯的《奧瑞斯提亞》（Aeschylus’ Oresteia）、柏拉圖的蘇格拉底式對話（Plato’s Socratic…

好消息！《不是女仆》获提名第十届香港小剧场奖： 最佳整体演出 最佳剧本 – 集体创作 最佳导演 – 艾浩家、李婉晶 我们的创作团队都很高兴这个作品得到肯定，这全赖各位受访者、受访家庭及受访机构的信任、以及各方的支持。我们会继续努力，希望各位继续关注外佣议题。