Interview: Edward Lam on What is Sex? - his take on Dream of the Red Chamber
Theatre director Edward Lam Yik-wah looks anything but tired having rushed from the airport to his office in Wan Chai for our interview. He has just finished five performances of his latest production, What is Sex? in Taiwan and is excited to share an excerpt of the video recording to back up a point he is about to make.
WHAT IS SEX?
Edward Lam Dance Theatre
Theatre director Edward Lam Yik-wah looks anything but tired having rushed from the airport to his office in Wan Chai for our interview. He has just finished five performances of his latest production, What is Sex? in Taiwan and is excited to share an excerpt of the video recording to back up a point he is about to make.
The final piece of his Four Great Classics series — a project kicked off in 2006 featuring reinterpretations of Water Margin, Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Journey to the West — What is Sex? is Lam's unique take on Cao Xueqin's Dream of the Red Chamber with a male-dominated cast, which is unusual for the 18th century story.
"The decision to leave Dream of the Red Chamber until last is intentional," says Lam. "Just like when I'm having a meal, I always save the best for last. It's a tendency of mine that is almost masochistic.
"This book is my favourite — it is such a big book. It is so rich and time-transcending, there can be infinite angles to approaching it."
While Lam had offered a glimpse of one of the angles in Awakening (2012), which is primarily a character study of Jia Baoyu, What is Sex? delves deeper through a script revolving around two women with failed marriages and their relationship with 12 gigolos, a conceptual allusion to the book's Jinling's Twelve Beauties.