Peace Corps: Experiencing Thai Theater

So after Thai Sport Day, we were shuttled to the National Theatre in Suphan Buri in a snazzy bus with fans mounted all on the ceiling. We made sure we were super riap roy (dressed complete and appropriately) for this event, even though we just spent the morning engaging in physical activity in the heat and humidity.

As soon as we walk in, we are greeted with a wall of cool air from the air conditioners that I sure were working overtime. Keep in mind, most, if not all of us have not had the pleasure of being in a mechanically cooled room since we left the hotel. This was quite the shock.

As we waited to be taken to our seats, we bought some beverages from the snack bar and some of us practiced our Thai with other theatre goers. It’s always really validating to have someone understand what you are saying and carry on a short, surface conversation with people in a language that you didn’t know anything about 3 weeks prior.

Once we were seated, I opened up my program and was initially overwhelmed by the Thai that comprises the first half and felt for sure that I would not know a single thing that was about to happen. However, my friend pointed out that there was an English translation in the second half that I completely missed and so I proceeded to read it aloud (misspellings and all).

Here is a brief summary of “The Khon (Masked Play): The Ramakien: Episode of Hanuman, the Illustrious Simian Warrior” –
The story is taken from the National Classic Ramakien which is the story of the Indian hero Rama. Prior to the story that is being presented, the god Narayana was reincarnated as Rama and Asura was reborn as the demon king Thosakanth. This caused a lot of anxiety and a bunch of planetary gods decide to come to Earth as simian leaders to help Rama destroy Thosakanth. Also going on in a village there is a hermit who creates a wife from fire by magic. Indra the Sun god comes down and makes love to the wife and she has two sons. The hermit finds out about this from his daughter and gets mad, so he turns the sons into monkeys and his wife into stone. But before she turns to stone she curses her daughter, who betrayed her, to stand motionless on one leg until she gave birth to a monkey that would fight for Rama.

Act I – Shiva hears about the daughter and want to help so he tells the Wind god to throw weapons into her mouth and then she has a monkey baby named Hanuman. Hanuman can never die and has magical powers from his Wind god father and Shiva blesses him so that he can transform into any shape. Hanuman has a secret identity that only Rama can identify and then flies into the sky.

Act II – Hanuman goes into the goddess Uma’s garden and trashes the place. She gets pissed and curses him so that he loses half of his strength and he can only get it back once Rama, who he hasn’t meet yet, strokes his back three times. Rama won his wife in a tournament and is returning home with her and then goes into self-imposed exile for 14 years. During this time Thosakanth abducts Sida and then gets in a fight with the bird king Sadayu, who is a friend of Rama. Sida drops a shawl during the fight and Hanuman picks it up to return to Rama who is sleeping while his brother Laksh watches. Hanuman starts playing pranks because he’s a monkey and Laksh gets upset and wakes up Rama. Hanuman and Rama recognize each other and Rama strokes Hanuman’s back so he regains his strength. Then Hanuman says that he’ll go get the simian armies to fight Thosakanth. He takes a bunch of monkey soldiers to find out what happened to Sida, who Rama had fallen in love with at first sight.

Act III – There are some monkey battles. Thosakanth is wounded, but doesn’t die because his soul had been taken from his body. Rama finds out that the only way to kill Thosakanth is to get his soul and destroy it at the same time as shooting Thosakanth with an arrow. Hanuman volunteers to get the soul and takes his friend Ongkhot with him. They lie and say that they have become Rama’s enemies and want to join Thosakanth. Ongkhot gets the casket with the soul of Thosakanth in it and Thosakanth is so stoked to have Hanuman on his side that he puts him in charge of the army. On the battlefield, Hanuman taunts Laksh, who didn’t know about the double agent plan. The next day, Hanuman convinces Thosakanth that victory is near and they take to the battlefield. Rama shoots off Thosakanth’s head, but he gets it back magically. Then Hanuman appears with the soul casket and Thosakanth realizes he was tricked. He goes back to his demon kingdom depressed because he know that his death in imminent.

Act IV – Rama is crowed king and he rewards all his officers, including Hanuman who is entitled to rule half the kingdom. But Hanuman realizes that he is only Rama’s servant and says he wants to give Rama back all the kingship. But Rama like Hanuman so much that he makes a new kingdom for Hanuman to be in charge of. But Hanuman still doesn’t want to be king because he is a monkey and so he gives it up again and becomes a priestly hermit in the forest, ending his gallantry forever.

The end.

Here are some pictures: