When they ask you not to take photos during a performance, it is usually to stop you distracting the actors or infringing someone’s rights. As a rule, it is not because you might rob the actors of their liberty. That, though, is the implication of the warning that precedes This Is Not a Show about Hong Kong. In the wrong hands and in the wrong country, your casual snaps could be evidence for the prosecution. Were this show to be performed in Hong Kong, the collaborators would be risking five years in prison.
This was not meant to happen. Hong Kong was supposed to maintain its autonomy and freedoms until 2047 when the UK was scheduled to cede the region to China. Instead, the Chinese government’s national security bill has ushered in an era of censorship and repression more than 25 years ahead of time. The show’s warning about photography is followed by an audio montage of rules and restrictions – many of them familiar to us, others less so – to suggest lives lived under an increasing burden of oversight.
