Play to Win makes a daring bid to trap racing, adolescent minds, exposing its young audiences to the kung-fu thrills that first kicked their way into Western culture through Bruce Lee and later Jackie Chan. It stakes out its territory in the electronic fantasy world of interactive computer games and martial-arts videos, using their values to investigate the violence that is becoming commonplace in playgrounds plagued by drugs and knives.
Paul de La Cruz is a Filipino boy, whose wish to escape the bullies at his school is matched only by his desperate longing for a dynamic Nokia mobile phone. When he joins the Black Snake Triad gang - a group of kung-fu-mad pupils with personalities as subtle as their flick-knives - it seems he has gained playground cred, but this is only the start of his rise to the height of cool.
This is a brave look at the rising tide of bullying making newspaper headlines. It investigates the complexity of cool in a culture where children's fantasies have become commercialised, so that ability comes as a poor second to the latest technological accessory.
Director David KS Tse has framed his investigation in a format buzzing with kung-fu choreographies and projected extracts from films. Unfortunately, his characterisation is not so inspired: there is a sense of types, rather than personalities inhabiting the stage. For adults, the technical accessories are no compensation for the lack of substance - especially in the main character, who is wetter than a waterfall.
He has hit his target, though, for the teenagers in the audience were enthralled, whether by jokes like having a naked Queen Mother as a screensaver, or by the play's optimistic theme. On the postcards for the childrens' comments outside, one word was scrawled again and again: Cool. The critics have spoken.
Play To Win
