While many employees looked forward to enjoying their day off on May 1, members of B-Floor, Bangkok's physical theatre company, and Red Cabbage, Melbourne's visual theatre collective, planned to celebrate Labour Day working and enjoyed that weekend doing more than the job they love.

These thespians not only impressed their audience by staging a play, but, through their double-bill programme of contemporary performances, they probed into and gave the spectators a guided tour through the lives of labourers and migrant workers whose journey is, "one that is fuelled by hope and often saturated in tragedy and is both a product and proprietor of a stratified society", the two troupes said.

As the gong reverberated in Tadu Art Gallery's lobby, white doors slid open, revealing a dimly lit space. Thus began "Performance in Progress," the first of the two final showcases which wrapped up the "B-Fest: Physical Theatre Weeks 2008" that started on April 19.

After being allowed to wander amid the performers who were pushing large white blocks back and forth across the almost empty room for a short while, the audience was ushered to a dark corner. Once the light was switched back on, following a brief pitch-black moment, the audience found itself enclosed in a small space with a group of actors, including Anna Voronoff, who served as the link between the two companies. The actors were choking, gasping for breath and climbing on top of each other for space before collapsing. At that moment, one could recall without help from any dialogue, the dreadful incident of human trafficking in which 54 of the 121 Burmese being smuggled into Thailand suffocated to death in a refrigerated seafood truck about a month ago.

Despite the cultural differences, both the performing troupes shared an interest in the issue of migration, which proved to be more serious than many of us realised. In one scene, migrants were portrayed as mere beings willing to do anything as long as there were coins or bank notes dropped in front of them. In another, towards the end, after being guided up the stairs to the rooftop, the audience witnessed, from a distance, the alarming juxtaposing images of migrant workers limping with suffering in their eyes and of two diners luxuriously throwing heaps of rice away—notwithstanding its current price—against the dark blue sky on the elevated area.

After the brief intermission was the Thailand premiere of "GODaGARDENER" a solo performance by Teerawat Mulvilai, inspired by his 2006 interviews with Thai labourers in Taiwan who had gone through the painful memories of a factory fire a year before.

In the play, a rural farmer named Goda undergoes difficulties in order to get one sweet and juicy watermelon. He generously shares it with the audience before leaving his green patch to instead earn some greenbacks in a faraway land. However, he ends up with an overused body and a beautiful memory of his garden, presented to us in the form of a video projection on the wall.

Periodically accompanied by narrations both in English and Thai, standard and Northern dialects simultaneously, Teerawat managed to make this performance solidly physical. His small yet extremely muscular physique contributed to his sharp and dynamic execution of movements.

At one moment, the whole audience was left gaping as he leapt on top of the 2.5-metre-high blocks with incredible balance, pushing only with the strength of his arms. But of course, it was not possible for a humble gardener-turned-labourer to achieve "highly". He fell, but the fall was so carefully calculated and choreographed that it took the audience's breath away.

With the odd but intriguing spelling of the title combined with the plotline, it was hard not to notice that a gardener - a representative of the working class - might actually resemble God who created everything but gave all to others to use and destroy.

For more on B-Floor Theatre, www.BFloorTheatre.com

written by Jasmine Baker

published in The Nation on Saturday, May 10, 2008

photos courtesy of B-Floor Theatre