Stan Lai - Works

Works

Stan Lai is known as “probably the best Chinese language playwright and director right now” (International Herald Tribune) and “Asia’s Top Theatre Director” (Asiaweek). Since 1984, his 30 original plays have continually pioneered the way toward new horizons in modern Chinese theatre. China’s most prominent critic Yu Qiuyu says that Lai’s work “always has the ability to touch the heartstrings of countless audiences.”

Stan Lai’s plays have the rare knack “to combine popular culture with high art.” The Far Eastern Economic Review describes his work as "the most exciting theatre in the Chinese-speaking world." His most famous work Secret Love In Peach Blossom Land (1986) has toured worldwide, been made into an award-winning film (1992), and in 2007 was chosen as one of the top ten Chinese plays of the century. Lai’s 2006 Beijing production has been a milestone in recent Chinese theatre for the breadth and depth of its influence. The New York Times said it “may be the most popular contemporary play in China…by the end, the audience is left to contemplate the burdens of memory, history, longing, love and the power of theater itself.” In 2007, Lai directed his own English translation of the play at Stanford University.

Lai’s famous “crosstalk” (相聲 or xiangsheng) plays, starting with the groundbreaking 那一夜，我們說相聲 That Evening, We Performed Xiangsheng (1985) have helped create the large, popular audience base for his critically acclaimed work, while at the same time resuscitating the dying traditional performing art form of xiangsheng. His epic 8 hour A Dream Like A Dream (2000) has been called “a masterpiece” of modern Chinese drama, and has drawn comparisons to Peter Brook’s Mahabharata. His two recent works Light Years (2008) and The Village (2008) explore decades of history and social change respectively in China and Taiwan, where performances have met with enthusiastic success. Writing in Water (2009) continues his development of Buddhist themes, which have become more prominent in his work.

Lai's main tool for playwriting is his use of improvisation in collaboration with the actors, which include many of the most respected names of the time. This is a method he learned from his mentor Shireen Strooker of the Amsterdam Werkteater, and he is one of the world's foremost exponents of using improvisation as a creative tool. His 30 plays are widely varied in style and reflect on the individuality of each project he undertakes, as well as the uniqueness of each cast he works with.

Lai has also written and directed two widely acclaimed feature films, The Peach Blossom Land (1992) and The Red Lotus Society (1994), which received top prizes at the Berlin, Tokyo, and Singapore international film festivals. His improvisational experiment in television, All In the Family are Humans (1995–97), was a surprising alternative hit on Taiwan TV and ran for 600 episodes. Lai occasionally directs the works of others, including the Chinese language premiere of Angels in America, Part I. He has also directed innovative versions of Mozart’s operas Don Giovanni, Cosi fan tutte and Figaro, all set in Chinese backgrounds, in collaboration with Taiwan’s National Symphony Orchestra.

In 2007, Lai became a best-selling author in Taiwan and China with his book on creativity called Stan Lai On Creativity (Chinese Lai Shengchuan de Chuangyixue), based on a course on Creativity he taught at Stanford University. This book has gained a reputation in business as well as artistic readers as a unique take on how one can train in creativity.