


祖宗十八代 (Eighteen Lives) is a comedy about the people we keep meeting, lifetime after lifetime.
With no elaborate set and no costume changes, the actors transform time and space using only voice, gesture and the collective imagination of the room. Past lives echo into the present; private longing slips into something mythic; a single look can feel like déjà vu.
The work follows three souls who are always drawn back to one another. In one life, they are lovers. In the next, strangers. In another, rivals. They try again, fail again, find each other again — sometimes hilariously, sometimes heartbreakingly. And through the looping of lives, the same question quietly asks to be heard:
If this is not the first time we’ve met, why does it still feel so difficult to say the truth?
Funny, intimate and gently devastating, Eighteen Lives combines physical theatre, comedy and poetic storytelling to explore why some relationships never really end — even when we think they have.
1hr 10min. No interval.
25th March, 2026
4th April, 2026

Explosives Factory is accessed via a flight of stairs and is not wheelchair accessible.
GETTING TO THE VENUE
BY TRAM: Tram: 3/3a and 67
BY BUS: Buses: 600, 246, 922 and 923
CREATIVES:
Fini Liu
Sally Chen
Yuchen Yao
Zena Wang
Yuan Lu
Tony Zhang
Yufan Chen
Alex Zhou
Jack Yu
Sinya Li
Yuqing Xia
Jiamuzi Gao
Eighteen Lives runs for 1hr 10min. No interval.
Eighteen Lives is at St Kilda's Explosives Factory | Theatre Works, which is located at 67 Inkerman Street, St Kilda, 3182.
Eighteen Lives tickets start at $20.
Check the top of this page for current availability on Eighteen Lives tickets on TodayTix.