Descendants Of The Eunuch Admiral

Descendants of The Eunuch Admiral
Performed at Victoria Theatre, Singapore, 3 - 5 June 1995

Descendants of The Eunuch Admiral was also performed at:
Victoria Theatre, Singapore 4 - 13 October 1996
As-Salam Theatre, Cairo, 2 - 3 September 1996
Hamburger Kammerspiele, Hamburg, 21 - 22 August 1998
House of World Cultures, Berlin, 28 - 29 August 1998

A Theatreworks Production
For more details, check out www.theatreworks.org.sg


"The figures on stage revolve as if driven by pure inner force. Six, seven, eight minutes long. A woman narrates with great exuberance. At the end the faces brighten, glowing and radiant. A festival of intoxicating spiritual beauty."(Albers, Hamburger Abendblatt, 1998)

"Pure in his abstraction, Ong Keng Sen chooses sumptuous and flamboyant means of expression: wonderful fabrics are pulled out, sublime lighting effects are produced, the highly refined choreography of the bodies seem to be like a painting" (Mangold, Feuilleton, 1998).

Descendants of the Eunuch Admiral is inspired by the stories of the legendary eunuch of China, Admiral Zhenghe.
Written by the late Kuo Pao Kun, and directed by Ong Keng Sen, Descendants weaves a powerful tale of castration and politics as it tells of ancient Chinese court practices and the legendary eunuch, Admiral Cheng Ho, who was responsible for China's most extensive maritime expeditions in the 15th century. Parallels are drawn between the power struggles of court eunuchs and modern-day office workers using the metaphor of castration to show how much they have sacrificed in order to climb up the corporate ladder.
A multi-disciplinary performance, Descendants had the actors perform against a backdrop of computer projections and an eclectic soundtrack, "creating a cohesive assault on the sense that was spell-binding." (Koh, the Straits Times, 1995)

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