Screen play reflects new reality

As the book is about Oran's quarantine, his original thought was to set the backdrop in Wuhan, which was placed under a 76-day lockdown between Jan 23 and April 8 last year.

But as COVID-19 has become a pandemic, plunging the world into a series of unparalleled public health challenges, as well as the unprecedented social and economic impact, he made an ambitious decision to set the story against the prevailing global crisis.

"It's essential to bear in mind dramaturgical thinking, figuring out how to combine the script with reality," he says.

It's not the first time that he tried to use Zoom to make a play. In April 2020, a few days before Wuhan ended its lockdown, Waiting for Godot, featuring four performers from three Chinese cities including Wuhan, premiered online. Adapted from the tragicomedy by Irish writer Samuel Beckett, the play told stories about people during the COVID-19 outbreak.

As for The Plague, Wang wanted actors and actresses of different races that can speak fluent English, covering five continents on the globe. He also wanted them to showcase local scenery and landmarks from their balcony or windows.

To make it easy to adjust a suitable rehearsal time based on different time zones, Wang even regulated in advance which regions of the country the performers came from. Their final daily rehearsal was from 6 pm to midnight (Beijing Time).

From November to January, he expended a lot of effort to get suitable performers for the cast, with help from HKAF's organizing committee.

He auditioned about 30 performers, and it offered him a glimpse into how the global theater industry has been affected by the outbreak of COVID-19.

A Polish actress in London says she was glad to have the audition as it had been a long time since her last one. An actor from Colombia, who's also in charge of a theater, says the venue had been empty since the outbreak of COVID-19.

"The creative work represents the indomitable spirit and inflexible will of human beings. Even at this difficult time, we can also make it to produce arts," Wang says.

He has to overcome difficulties such as language barrier-some performers only speak English as a second language, including himself, and technical problems-network delays and acoustic fidelity.

Once their actor from South Africa disappeared and reappeared half an hour later at his friend's home, because there was a sudden blackout.