This April, Centre 42 warmly welcomes another batch of students from the NUS Theatre Studies programme to undertake a Vault Residency. They will be presenting PE*IS, a performance-response to theatre doyen Kuo Pao Kun's Descendants of the Eunuch Admiral. First presented in 1995, and restaged several times since, Descendants is one of Kuo's most beloved and well-known plays. It cleverly uses the story of Admiral Zheng He, the legendary Chinese eunuch, to draw parallels to the modern Singaporean condition and the 'cultural orphan' phenomenon.

COLLATERALSDescendants of the Eunuch Admiral (1995), Programme

Programme for Descendants of the Eunuch Admiral (1995).

T:>Works (TheatreWorks)

Recorded: 3 June 1995

PRODUCTIONS & STAGINGSKeturunan Laksamana Tak Ada Anu (2003)

In this interpretation of the text, the figure of Admiral Zheng He, both icon and iconoclast, undergoes further interrogation. Importing their own cultural background as Singaporean Malays into the work, the artists involved will seek the spaces in the text which will allow them to question their own hybrid and syncretic identities. Various composite layers will be added to Kuo's already rich and multifarious text, which will include parallel texts from Malay historical documents, as well as extensions of v

The Theatre Practice

Staged: 25 September 2003

REVIEWSDescendants of the Eunuch Admiral (2015), Review

Tough to Swallow It is often difficult to approach a play with established history, especially one that holds as much significance as Descendants of the Eunuch Admiral. Written by Kuo Pao Kun and first staged in 1995, Descendants has since become a Singapore classic – a powerful tale of identity and modernity, ideas that have been and still are prevalent in our society. Jeff Chen’s no-holds-barred adaptation of the play is one that plunges the traditional script into a variety of abstra

Casidhe Ng

Reviewed: 30 April 2015

ESSAYS & WRITINGSFour Kuo Pao Kun Plays

These four plays by late theatre doyen Kuo Pao Kun form the primary text for Margaret Chan’s investigation into the metaphors of Big Bird and the Cat. Find out about their first stagings and how the critics and public responded to them at the time.

Daniel Teo

Published: 7 October 2015

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