Review-Literary Death Match-Story Worthy Week
8-9-13
By: Meaghan McGurgan
Tonight I was invited to review Literary Death Match as part of Story Worthy Week. Before attending the show I had no idea what LDM was but the name of the event brought up many images to mind. Was it the Hunger Games with giant quills for swords and erasers used in grenade launchers? Was it more Gladiator where the author with inferior sentence structure was sent onstage with a tiger and a stick for self-defence? Turns out it was more like a boxing match of the minds. 4 authors enter and one leaves with three local judges deciding their fate. (Four in tonight’s case.) The authors read a piece of short fiction in a dramatic reading for the audience. It must be 7 minutes in length. 2 authors enter the first round and one leaves. They are voted on in three areas: literary merit, performance style and intangibles.
The readers for tonight were Doretta Lau, Austin Tang, Jeanne Lambin and David Young. All the readers were good and showed various styles of prose. We had a piece of short sci-fi from Miss Lau, a beautiful piece of writing about the Canadian North and Army life from David Young. We heard a very dark introspected piece of writing from Jeanne Lambin. Austin Tang’s hilarious short story on Indonesian mosquito battles was one of the highlights of the evening. Miss Lambin and her great style of performance vanquished Mr. Tang in his first round. David Young defeated Doretta Lau leaving us with a final round of Lambin vs. Young.
The final round of the competition was where the theatrics of the evening really heated up. The final round between our two previous winners was decided with a battle of literary Pictionary. The dirty doodle of Lolita will be forever burned into my eyes thanks to this evening’s performance. Thumbs up for the audience interaction! Oftentimes audience interaction bombs in HK. Tonight’s young audience was ready to play.
Another thumbs up must go to the creator of LDM, Adrian Todd Zuniga, who hosted the event tonight and is currently touring the event around the globe. Mr. Zuniga had a great presence on stage that made you really care about the event and the fate of the authors. His banter and literary facts were interesting. He had a good personality for hosting and he read the room well.
If LDM came back to Hong Kong again I would definitely urge you to go check it out. It was good fun and a solid evening of entertainment. Maybe not perfectly kid friendly as a few blue words were thrown about and the Pictionary was definitely R rated. But I think that Literary Death Match is a great way to turn up the sex appeal on Literature.
PS- Snaps to David Young for winning.
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