Dreambox's sung-through musical lets you see this ghost more clearly and realistically than ever.

The first thing veteran playwright Daraka Wongsiri wanted to know two years ago when she started writing the script and lyrics for "Mae Nak the Musical", which Dreambox is staging in July, was why a ghost would be so angry.

Even given that she died while giving birth, why was the spirit of Mae Nak so vicious, so full of wrath? 

"From my research, I found that the lives of women in those days, the early Rattanakosin period, were much harsher than we can imagine," Daraka says.

"So let's look at the story from Nak's point of view, and try to more or less justify her actions."

Nak, born into a well-to-do family in Ayutthaya, eloped to Phra Khanong with Mak, a lower-class man.

"She became a fish out of water," Daraka points out. "It was a major conflict that incited the whole series of horrific events, but it's never been explored by any of the films or plays about her."

“Another message is that humans can be more dreadful than ghosts. In that kind of highly patriarchal society, the women were letting their angst out on this stranger.” 

Daraka has focused more attention on other female characters in the classic spook story, including Nak and Mak's mothers and Saiyut. In a soap-opera, this character is normally stereotyped as a jealous villain. Not here.