As a young child, Jackie Pullinger had wanted to become a missionary, but it wasn’t until after she attended the Royal College of Music in London that she said she had a dream of a woman with her arms outstretched, asking for help. It was then she decided to come to Hong Kong in 1966 and work towards giving the drug-addled occupants of this slum a new chance at life. Initially she had found it hard speaking to people and spreading her message of Christianity: they were unreceptive and not until she opened a centre inside the walled city itself and provided them with a space to develop themselves that she saw the changes she had hoped for.
Eventually Pullinger’s work developed into what is now St Stephen’s Society, an organization that offers a home to people in need of a direction away from social problems and drugs. As one of the volunteers said, “We come together to help each other out; what we are, most of all, is a family.”

Part of St Stephen’s approach is to live in shared houses with those who want to get their lives back on track. The organization offers classes, both practical and academic, for school drop-outs not ready to go back to formal education: courses on computers, arts and crafts, and silk screening are just some of those offered. Recent acting and dance workshops have inspired the society to take their history to the stage, which is how Chasing the Dragon came about.

The performance is based on Pullinger’s book of the same name documenting her time in the walled city and takes the form of a series of vignettes covering some of the individual stories found in the book. The music and dances interspersed throughout the scenes are all original, written and choreographed specifically for the play. Some of the people in the adapted stories, including Pullinger herself, are still alive and connected to St Stephen’s today: musical director Esther Chu believes they would be proud to have their stories told, as they ended happily.

She says that, although some performers are volunteers for the society and some from the APA, many have been through the organization to clean up their lives. About a quarter of the 60-strong cast are ex-drug addicts whose lives and education continue at St Stephen’s. “Our oldest actor is 68, he’s got very few teeth left and he used to use drugs. But he’s clean now, and so happy to be a part of the play,” says Chu.
“We have always wanted to do something with the theme of our history,” she continues. “In the past our dance group did a piece inspired by our missionary work in the Philippines, but nothing about Jackie’s life. Everything now just came together – the director is someone I knew from a while ago, and the other music composers were people we knew through the society who wanted to help. Sum Sum [one of the choreographers] is a dancer and Jackie’s niece – it really is a miracle.”

Until now Pullinger hasn’t allowed movies or plays to be written about her life, but as Chasing the Dragon is a St Stephen’s project, she was quite happy to let it go ahead.

“She hasn’t seen the finished product,” says Chu. “But I think she’ll be happy with it and proud of the work we’ve done.”

Chasing the Dragon will be performed on February 24-25 at 8pm at Ko Shan Theatre. Tickets are $80 and $60 available from URBTIX, 2734 9009. The show is primarily in Cantonese with some English