Lovers Text Lovers by Ang Kia Yee

Lovers Text Lovers is an experimental play about the movement of love and desire within the entanglements of identity, pop culture and language. Taking the relationship of two lovers—a Singaporean Chinese postdoctoral researcher and a white British Tsinghua University professor of Comparative Literature—as a point of departure, Lovers Text Lovers asks: How much of our desires and relationships are predetermined? How can we transcend or re-interpret these narratives? Who else can we be(come) to ourselves and one another?

I tend to write instinctively, with my gut, without being fully cognizant of my own interests and intentions until I can read and process them. That is how I first drafted this script, which has been an exploration of my Singaporean Chinese identity in relation to pop culture, language and race. In particular, I’ve been curious about the ways pop culture and media influences how we perceive romance and relate to one another. With this second draft—a considerable overhaul of the first—I’d be keen to hear about your first impressions of the script. What are you most struck by, and what sort of questions does it raise for you?