Principal Yau Oi Yuen

It is with much pleasure and excitement that we celebrate the 35th Anniversary of Shatin Pui Ying College and stage the 7thEnglish Musical. For the first time, instead of creating an original script, we opted for an adaptation and entrusted the task to our student writers. And what a brave adaptation! No less than something Shakespearean, and the famous comedy Twelfth Night at that.

Viola, heroine, disguises herself as a man. Thus begins this tale of appearance and reality and their interplay. Here we are taken into a world where everything and everyone appears to be in disguise. Things are not what they really are. And individuals may not be what we think them to be. People deceive one another, including themselves sometimes.

There is however one seeming exception. The Clown to the Countess always acts the Fool. But his foolery somehow turns out to be most witty and clever. His lines and puns make us laugh. But he alone speaks the truth. The Fool wisely contributes to our confrontation with appearance and reality. What then are we to make of life? How are we to live a life that is true?

In Twelfth Night, love provides a way out. The fool reminds us “Love is a gift of the Lord, the only way to live in this blue world of tears.” The issue of appearance and reality is resolved by the triumph of love, but not without pain and suffering, and a timely dose of merciful Providence.

Hong Kong is not the legendary city of Shakespeare’s Illyria. But it too is troubled by the ‘blue world” of disguise and reality. But, thank God, that is not the last chapter of the story.