Pull Back the Curtain

CANDACE CHONG MUI-NGAM

Candace Chong Mui-ngam, a six-time winner of the Hong Kong Drama Awards Best Script prize, brings a bold new story to the stage this year. We Are Gay is Chong’s first play centred around gay characters; a murder mystery that examines what happens when an older barrister sidles his way into a relationship between a younger couple, an ambitious lawyer and a swimming coach.

Unlike local plays, literature, films and television drama, where same-sex romance is only hinted at by euphemistic dialogue, handholding or, at most, kissing, Chong’s play features nudity, sex, violence and strong language. “I want a darker story with explicit details, which gives the play more realness, because in Hong Kong, we avoid talking about homosexuality and sex in public,” she says.

Chong has long wanted to write a play featuring gay characters, to give her own gay friends a sense of representation. One particular conversation has been driving her since she was researching her 2005 play . She