Review | The Woman in Kenzo review: a musical Sex and the City set in 1970s Hong Kong, production fails to shine despite strong performances and a colourful score
- A Hong Kong musical version of Sex and the City, The Woman in Kenzo follows four women in search of love
- Sadly, the production doesn’t capitalise on its potential, and is marred by some racial stereotyping
A decade in the making, The Woman in Kenzo finally sees the light of day in this Chung Ying Theatre production.
Eight years on, I walked into this three-hour-long show with both anticipation and trepidation. While I had no doubt about Ko’s score – he is still a top talent – the same could not be said of the adaptation of Dunn’s book (published in the 1980s), which in turn is a compilation of his The Woman in Kenzo columns published in City Magazine between the late 1970s and mid-1980s under the pseudonym Mary Chin.
How well would Mary’s tale of a smart, independent, sharp-tongued woman searching for love resonate with today’s audience (including non-Chinese speakers since the show has English surtitles)?
The story is set in 1970s Hong Kong at a time when a well-educated, affluent middle class had begun to emerge with the city’s economic take-off. Mary (played by Pak Ching-ying), together with her three best friends Mimi (Nicole Liu), Jan (Belinda Chan) and Martha (Kay Choi), belong to a new breed of women in their 20s who, with their financial independence and intellectual confidence, believe they can have it all – except for love.
When her boyfriend of two years Andy (Lau Chung-hin) asks her to move in with him (instead of proposing with a ring), Mary decides that is not enough for her; she thinks time is running out fast for her to find a husband, so they break up. Meanwhile, Martha is having issues with her Indian boyfriend and Mimi literally crashes into her future husband.
