To celebrate Bangkok’s 150 year, King Rama VII built the
Phra Phutayodfah Bridge that links Bangkok and Dhonburi, a statue of King Rama
I and also donated more than 9 million baht of his own funds to build the country’s
first cinema and interestingly the first air-conditioned cinema in South East
Asia. King Rama VII wanted his subjects
to be able to enjoy the most popular cinematic and theatrical performances. The construction of the Sala Chalermkrung
Theatre began in 1930 and opened its doors on 2 July 1933 and has provided that
entertainment to Thai people ever since.
It has also become an institute that has trained actors and performers
of all natures and has become a legendary venue.
In 2008, King Rama VII celebrated his 60th year on the
throne, and to mark the occasion the Sala Chalermkrung Foundation joined hands
with the Crown Property Bureau to launch the Sala Chalermkrung Khon
project. The project’s aim was to instil
appreciation for the Thai’s traditional culture and art. Khon is a classical art of Thailand where
masked performers enact scenes whilst narrators melodically tell the
story. Where the narrators used to be a
necessity as the masked performers couldn’t possibly fill the auditorium with their
voices, today they remain more for traditional purposes as wireless microphones
could easily be inserted inside the masks for amplification. The performance used to be for royalty only
as it was extraordinarily expensive to produce but with the changing of time,
King Rama VII has made this performance available to his people and visitors to
Thailand.
The most commonly used script is Ramakien, which is a
national epic derived from the Hindu Ramayana.
The Ramayana is an ancient epic which forms an important basis of the
Hindu cannon alongside the Mahabharata.
It depicts an idealistic society and duties of relationships between
mortals and gods. The Ramayana spread
across India, Nepal and into South East Asia.
Trade and business routes through the area accelerated its influence on
foreign cultures which in turn adopted and adapted the story to become their
own epics, Thailand’s version is the Ramakien and is apparently still taught in
schools today. Unfortunately many of the
original versions of Ramakien were destroyed when Ayutthaya was attacked and
razed to the ground by invading Burmese army which marked the end of the
Siamese Kingdom. In the 1790s King Rama
I set about creating his own version of the Ramakien which was then adapted by
his son, King Rama II who rewrote a selection of verses for the purpose of Khon
theatre.
Khon Theatre is interested in retaining tradition and
culture, not evolution of an artistic style.
With this in mind, we cannot look at Khon as an end to what Thailand’s
theatre has to offer. Unlike
neighbouring, Myanmar, Cambodia, China and disjoined Vietnam, Thailand has a
dramatically different political constitution as freedom of speech was
introduced during the 1990s. Although
during the recent 2006 Coup D’état which saw the military oust Prime Minister
Thaksin from power and exile him, there was a brief period of censorship which
affected television, radio and newspapers from reporting any news that may
cause social strife during the transitional period. Interestingly, the removal of censorship is
not entirely complete, by law, you are still not allowed to criticise the royal
family nor can you insult Buddhism. Thailand
did have a long history of censorship but was increasingly relaxed since the
dissolution of absolute monarchy. With
this more democratic constitution, Thai art forms have more freedom to produce
innovative performances than their neighbours so long as they avoid royal and
religious criticisms.
The performance began with a short documentary produced to
inform the audience of what Khon is and how the performers train and prepare
for the show. The performers dress in
extravagantly flamboyant costumes full of sequins, golden headdresses that peak
a foot above their crowns and intricately decorated masks covering their
faces. The cast multiplies to dozens and
the video records their preparation and how they are sewn into their costumes,
heaven knows what happens should you need to go to the toilet. I believe part of their training must focus
on the bladder! It’s magical to see
their slow, steady transformation from an ordinary Thai into this mystical
character they will characterise for the next hour and half.
The performers in Khon are highly trained and they practice
absolute control over their entire body. They slowly move with precise and meaningful
movements that are choreographed right down to their fingertips. Khon is a highly physical and symbolic art
form where the performers need to adhere to certain movements which express
various emotions. Their movement is
mesmerising, extreme control and balance is required as the pace of movement
can be fast and then slow. This reminded
me of the work of Eugenio Barba who believed in performers becoming masters of
their bodies to enable then to move freely and decisively. He put his students under gruelling and
repetitive exercises where the performer studies each individual muscle within
the body, what it does and how to manipulate it to get to where you need to
be. Interestingly, Barba was influenced by
Kathakali, an Indian dance-drama form that has a certain amount of similarities
to Khon. It’s fascinating how theatrical
cultures transport themselves around the world and merge.
The performance was a colourful display of dance, acrobatics,
movement and mime and although there was the issue of a language barrier, the
emotive gestures between performers provided more than enough meaning to
understand what was happening. I
thoroughly enjoyed the experience and would recommend this performance to
anyone who visits Bangkok.
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