While thousands of audiences enjoyed a wide-variety of outdoors free-admission theatrical performances at Santi Chaiprakarn Park, officially the hub of Bangkok Theatre Festival 2008, the attendance at other venues, city-wide, was pretty disappointing.

On the festival’s opening day (November 22), the number of audiences at Naked Masks Playhouse, a new small venue at Phyathai Plaza, was even less than that of cast members. Wattanachai Treedecha’s new dark comedy “Hong Sayong Long Tab” (“Heart Disease”) was a delight. The tale of a retiring hitman being hunted down by two mafia clans while falling in love was enhanced by dead-pan comic performances and the director’s smart use of the small space; while the brevity of many scenes, influenced by the young playwright’s cinematic mentality, was a minus.

Over the same weekend at another festival’s new venue Lido, the city-centre cinema temporarily turned playhouse, New Theatre Society’s “Maha Burut Ayuddhaya”, the ingenious musical play adaptation from George Bernard Shaw’s “Arms and the Man”, was marred by some actors’ lack of singing prowess and the faulty audio and visual technical aspects.

During the consequent weekdays (November 25 to 28), the revival of Makhampom’s experimental likay “Likit Nakha” (“The Message”) showed how a traditional Thai folk theatre can both entertain the audience and tell a contemporary story with social, cultural, and political relevance. Again, it was a shame that so few were there to appreciate it. 

The festival's second weekend was caught in the backwash of the airport sieges, with performances at the Santi Chaiprakarn Park cencelled on both days due to the proximity of anti-government ASTV's headquarters. Not quite sure which color of shirt to wear, this writer backed off too, cancelling his trips to the plays scheduled for restaurants in the area.

The festival contnued, though, and the audiences moved on. At Lido, for example, they enjoyed bites of satire in the revival of “Jai Yak” (“Giant”), a physical theatre collaboration of Theatre 8X8 and Babymime that won top prizes at last year's festival. Despite a pacier production that often left little time for our imaginations to get a grip on the action's significance, the play fitted well on the new indoor stage. And, now with PAD’s “clapping hands” joke, it retained a fine balance between comedy and drama while proving again that actions can indeed speak louder than words.  

The political tremors reached beyond the festival to Dreambox's “Tuen Tuek 2” at M Theatre. Lead actor Saranyoo Wongkrachang announced onstage after Friday’s (November 21) performance that he had another stage, presumably much more important, to command and would not perform the soon-to-be-wed Chinese construction engineer role on Sunday (November 23), when two performances had been scheduled and almost sold out.

Despite less than 40 hours for preparation, Phol Tantasathien, solidly proving that he is a professional actor, not only amazingly memorized all the lines, but also commendably fit in with the other cast members. The performance on Sunday afternoon, which this writer attended, flowed smoothly as if Phol had been with the production from the first rehearsal.

Credit for the audience's loud applause and constant laughs also have to go to the "dream team" of veteran playwright Daraka Wongsiri, whose wit was still sharp and jokes unique, and seasoned director Suwandee Chakravoravudh, whose sense of comic timing meant the play was paced just right.

Picking up where they left off in “Tuen Tuek” was the complete original cast (minus Saranyoo in the last two performances), whose spot-on characterizations and great ensemble work showed the wisdom of keeping the team together. The maid character’s hike in status to "her ladyship" after marrying a British lord, and the addition of a wedding planner were plausible and added to the laughs. The audience seemed bored though with yet another flamboyant turn from Methanee “Nino” Buranasiri.

As the self-obsessed and still unmarried friends reconvened around Mhong and Parn’s wedding, they hypocritically parroted, “Don’t be selfish--you have to do this for the sake of others”. That, perhaps, resonates with what is happening in this country.

“Bangkok Theatre Festival” will return next November. For more details and updates, visit www.BangkokTheatreFestival.com.

“Tuen Tuek 2” will be restaged in early February: keep checking www.Dreambox.co.th. Saranyoo has confirmed that he will not perform.