Lost in transition: Brecht’s theatre as a social change agent for youth empowerment in the time of the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong Handover

Bertolt Brecht wanted his work to revolutionise theatre's bourgeois values and bring about social and political change. This chapter discussed how Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle was adopted and performed by a youth theatre in Hong Kong with a re-interpretation of empowerment to the youth in the 21st century, particularly situated at the time of the 20th-anniversary celebration of Hong Kong returned to China. Taking the three major Brecht’s aesthetic principles and techniques: theVerfremdungseffekt, Historicisation, and Gestus, the director trained more than 30 novice youth performers to ensemble the script into Chinese and co-create six Cantonese songs with live band performance of the Caucasian Chalk Circle. The director has demonstrated his newly interpreted definition of empowerment through the six workshops and 200 hours of rehearsals, the youths experienced to release their personal and social anxiety through an art-based immersion. The production also granted a valuable experience of breaking through the social barrier of differentiation among people. By using three steps of form, process and team spirit, the director demonstrated how theatre art can be an effective strategy for social changes by levelling the acting skills among the novice youth performers and the implementation of empowerment. The co-created songs not only fulfilling the acquisition of the script, it also serves as a process of provocation through the cognitive disruptions to the performers and the spectator’ feeling of “living at the moment of Hong Kong” to devise ways to change the world (the daily living environment) into a place fit for people to live in. With the written post-performance evaluation, the youths expressed different levels of satisfaction regarding how this performative immersion provided catharsis to their unsettling heart for the current uncertainty of life. Such catharsis also opened up new perspectives for them to analyse their individual situation, needs and evolve potential strategies to address their previous emotional disturbs in career, relationships and the insecurity of living in the on-going changing political environment of Hong Kong.