Act for Your Passion, Recast the Tradition
Act for Your Passion, Recast the Tradition
Sharma Rohit’s Story
HKU Business School
BBA (Acc&Fin)
“When I am performing or directing a play, I truly think that this is one of the best feelings I have ever had in my life,” said Sharma, a theatre fanatic whose performing group – Hong Kong Shax Theatre Group (HKSTG) has recently secured a place in Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August 2022 in UK.
Being fascinated by Hollywood and Bollywood movies since childhood, Sharma started his first show in HKSTG in his secondary four, in which he played Donalbain in the Shakespeare adaptation – Macbeth. Since then, Sharma’s threatre journey has been closely interwoven with the HKSTG in which he wrote, directed, and acted in several plays. With an Indian background and his strong passion in theatre production, Sharma resonates with the vision of HKSTG to create and empower multicultural narratives through recontextualising classics plays.
An example of such classics recontextualisation will be the adaptation of a Shakespeare Classics – the Love’s Labour’s Lost – into a story set against the backdrop of China and India in the 18th century. With the group’s well-crafted plotting, both the Chinese and Indian cultures were showcased on stage via costumes, dialogues and dances. In the show, Sharma, as the actor of King Prithviraj (King Ferdinand in the original) and the Head of Dance in the play, eventually had the chance to combine his passion for acting and Bhangra (Indian Folk Dance) onto one stage.
“Whenever a script is made or written, there are certain kinds of emotions and memories embedded in it."
When asked about the most unforgettable experience in HKSTG, Sharma recalled his trip to the AsiaTOPA 2020 Arts Festival in Melbourne, in which he performed as Antigonus in The Winter’s Tale, a Shakespeare adaptation too. Not only was he exhilarated by the chance to perform on stage in Australia, but he was also thrilled by the time of rehearsing with the Australian peers and experiencing the theatre culture there.
“Whenever a script is made or written, there are certain kinds of emotions and memories embedded in it,” Sharma is looking forward to attending the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and more overseas showcases, if the COVID situation allows, to perform more quality theatre productions that recognise and appreciate cultural diversity – the message he longs to convey via his passion.
Written by:
Carmen Ng
Year 4, Faculty of Social Sciences
February 2022