Intimacy: A Selection of Gao Junyao's Plays

If I were to tell my father's story, where should I begin? From when he came with my grandparents to Malaysia? Or from when he met my mother and they had us? Or from his funeral? Where should I begin to make it clearer? Where should I begin so it isn't too easy? – "Records of Death"

 

Gao Jun-yao, an actor, director, and playwright, has been praised as one of Taiwan's theater creators with a "demonic vision." His plays are not merely a composition of characters, dialogue, and plot; they are a triple symphony of text, language, and sound, leading down a hidden path to history. As he wrote, "Words speak, sometimes more consciously than their creator. The origin of a word is far older than the birth of a person." Thus, his creative gaze is often drawn to the rise and fall of buildings, the half-dream, half-waking states, the people, the deaths, and the lives. "Numbers are human designations, and numbers also become objects of desire. People split within themselves, a symptom of the era's spiritual schizophrenia."

 

"Intimacy: Selected Plays by Gao Jun-yao" features three of Gao Jun-yao's plays from the past decade: "Records of Death" (co-written with Tsai Cheng-shen), "The Great World Entertainment II" (co-written with Mo Zhao-zhong), and "Intimacy." Their themes encompass Malaysian ethnic politics, Macanese casino capitalism, and the spiritual geography of diasporic Chinese. This book also includes four creative notes and two interview transcripts, fully presenting a stage artist's artistic journey.

 

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Kuo Li-Hsin / Image Culture Critic

Chen Wei-Cheng / Theater Arts Educator

Sun Chun-Mei / Malaysian Drama Educator

Chan Ping-Chiu / Artistic Director of On & On Theatre Workshop, Hong Kong

Ng Chi-Ying / Manager of Pin-to Livros & Comida, Macau

Yao Li-Chun / Director of Guling Street Avant-garde Theatre

Hsu Li-Wen / Actress, Writer