Theatre Ronin 20th Anniversary Production: The Tear Deer

EVENT DESCRIPTION

During the height of the Qianlong era, a youth from the north, Amuktai, learns from his shaman mother how to summon deer by whistle. At night, he and his confidante, Pinar, sit by the fire basin, gazing at the stars.

Inside the Forbidden City, the Qianlong Emperor dreams of Kangxi seated upon an antler chair. Woke unsettled, he resolves to travel to the Mulan hunting grounds and enter the forest, searching for a voice that can answer him.

At the edge of the hunting grounds, a fateful encounter between ruler and subject draws near— the whistle echoes through the woods, the shadows of the deer flicker in and out of sight. In this deer pursuit, upon whose hands will rightful primacy ultimately fall?

The Yilin says:
“Where there are deer, the nine clans live in harmony and know no hunger.”

Theatre Ronin continues its romantic intuition, adapting Xi Xi’s classic historical novel The Tear Deer, written in the 1980s and inspired by Qing dynasty Western painter Giuseppe Castiglione’s (also known as Lang Shining) Whistling for Deer.

In the style of magical realism, the stage reimagines a world where humans and deer merge as one—losing themselves completely, traversing life and death, shaking heaven and earth, and ultimately returning to nature.

Dates and time:

2026/05/08 FRI 08:00PM
2026/05/09 SAT 08:00PM
2026/05/10 SUN 03:00PM
Running time is about 120 minutes without intermission.
In Cantonese with Chinese and English surtitles.

ABOUT THE ARTIST / ORGANISER

Theatre Ronin was founded by its artistic director Alex Tam Hung Man in 2006 and is currently a recipient of Hong Kong Arts Development Council’s two-year grant. Theatre Ronin is the Founding Member of the International Alliance of Independent Theatre (IAIT), an IATL project, affirming our imaginative work’s global impact.
Dedicated to exploring contemporary theatrical language and the aesthetics of ‘Theatre of Imagery’ and creating a distinctively imaginative performing style, Theatre Ronin’s theatrical works stemmed from varied source materials, as well as the culture and literature of Hong Kong and the world, creating thought-provoking theatrical works with humanistic concerns. Many of its works are invited to various arts festivals in Asia, Europe, and South America.