Kuo Pao Kun is perhaps Singapore’s most influential dramatist and arts activist. He was a bilingual English and Mandarin playwright who was a pioneer of multidisciplinary, multilingual and multicultural contemporary theatre in Singapore. He was also an influential educator and enabler who established The Theatre Practice, The Substation and the Theatre Training & Research Programme (now the Intercultural Theatre Institute), and brought artists from different cultures and disciplines together. Despite being detained without trial for over four years in the late ’70s, he became the strength of Singapore theatre in the ’80s and ’90s and forged a body of work built on humanistic ideals. Although he passed away in 2002, his institutions continue to nurture generations and his theatre work, which has at its heart a true sense of self and a wider humanity, still invites audiences to think, feel and question.

Kuo Pao Kun was born in 1939 in Hebei, China, to a poor rural family. As his father had come to Singapore to set up a business, his mother relocated with an 8-year-old Kuo to Beijing and then to Hong Kong. When Kuo turned 10, they joined his father in Singapore. Here, he attended six different Chinese and English schools, as his father transferred him from one school to the next.

At the age of 15, while still studying, he began working at Rediffusion radio’s Mandarin Drama Group as a broadcaster, writer and performer of radio dramas and xiangsheng, and he became sought after for his Beijing-accented Mandarin. When he graduated in 1959, he moved to Melbourne to work as a Chinese translator-announcer for Radio Australia. In 1963, he enrolled in Sydney’s National Institute of Dramatic Arts where he would be trained in Western theatre while working at the Old Tote Theatre Company (now the Sydney Theatre Company). During this period of time, he also became engaged to Melbourne-based Singaporean ballerina, Goh Lay Kuan.

Upon his graduation in 1965, the pair returned to Singapore and on 1 July 1965, co-founded the Singapore Performing Arts School (now known as The Theatre Practice) on the day they were married. Goh headed the dance wing while Kuo took charge of drama, teaching theatre and writing, producing, directing and the staging of theatre productions. After initial struggles, Kuo built a strong base of students from all walks of life, many of whom became involved in his productions.

From the ’20s to the ’70s, contemporary Chinese theatre in Singapore was highly political and viewed by left-leaning Chinese dramatists as a tool for social change. During that time—with a few exceptions such as his 1966 staging of Singapore’s first Brecht play, The Caucasian Chalk Circle which he translated into Mandarin—Kuo created plays that reflected his leftist ideology and concerns about post-independence Singapore. Then, in a time of rapid urbanisation, an influx of multinational investments, the demolition of villages to make way for industrialisation and the rise of the English-educated elite, he wrote about the displacement and marginalisation of certain communities, the struggles of the working class and a rising social inequality.

In 1976, Kuo and his wife were arrested and detained without trial. Although Goh was subsequently released a few months later, Kuo was stripped of his citizenship and suffered more than four years of imprisonment while his wife looked after their two young daughters and ran their school alone.

When Kuo was released in 1980, he resumed working immediately. By then, the spirit of contemporary Chinese theatre in Singapore had been broken and its playwrights had been silenced. Amidst the ashes, a largely English-language and individualistic theatre scene had sprung up, fuelled by the government’s establishment of English as the first language in the ’70s.

In this new environment, Kuo—still deeply attached to Singapore—created plays that still contained astute observations and criticisms of society and the nation’s development, but which were reflective of life and society in a gentler, more metaphorical way. Post-1980 plays such as The Coffin Is Too Big For the Hole—about a man trying to get permission from unyielding authorities to bury his deceased father in a coffin too big for the standard-sized grave—and Lao Jiu—about an intelligent boy who turns down a high-paying job to become a traditional puppeteer—showed a new mitigation of criticism with humour.

Where before he had written only in Mandarin, Kuo—from 1983 onwards—wrote plays in English and Mandarin and peppered them with other languages used in Singapore—Hokkien, Malay and Tamil. He became a pioneer of multidisciplinary and multicultural contemporary theatre in Singapore. His plays, often featuring a multicultural cast, celebrated everyday cross-cultural exchanges, and embraced diversity in culture, language, beliefs and ways of life. By the ’90s, he had become an artistic powerhouse. His plays were acclaimed not only in Singapore but overseas, lauded for their pluralism, social-consciousness and humanistic ideals.

He also taught and influenced artists across disciplines, cultures and generations, and paved the way for arts education with his institutions, workshops and collaborations. Practice Performing Arts School birthed three important Singapore arts institutions—The Theatre Practice, The Substation and the Theatre Training & Research Programme, which sought to establish an Asian theatre methodology and nurture Singapore talent.

He became known for his gift of bringing people together and getting artists from different cultures and disciplines to collaborate. He was also a selfless mentor who supported fellow practitioners and friends without reservations. Ex-student and playwright Han Lao Da attests, “Kuo Pao Kun greatly influenced and nurtured me. He helped revise my first xiangsheng play The Gift Ticket, and also performed in it. When he knew of my interest in xiangsheng, he gave me great encouragement.”

In 1989, Kuo received the Cultural Medallion for his contributions to theatre. He also received the 2002 Excellence for Singapore Award, 1990 ASEAN Cultural Award and the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French government in 1996. In 1992, his Singapore citizenship was reinstated.

Kuo died of cancer in September 2002. He was mourned around the world. Today, his plays have been translated into many languages and performed internationally. His institutions continue to nurture generations. And his voice, quiet yet strong in its idealism, continues to speak out to audiences through his body of work.

In 2012 and 2013, celebrated Singapore theatre director Ong Keng Sen presented Goh Lay Kuan & Kuo Pao Kun, a portrait of the pioneering Singapore arts couple.

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