Showing 1 - 10 of 27
Welcome back to space
Life, Amitha Amranand, Published on 28/07/2020
» With a phone in hand and a pre-recorded voice in our ears, we step down a half-turn staircase at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (BACC) towards the basement.
The 'scene', in all its glory
Life, Amitha Amranand, Published on 28/12/2017
» It was a busy year for Thai theatre. Life highlights a few trends and picks the best productions of 2017
Grace, beauty - and self-discovery
Life, Amitha Amranand, Published on 01/12/2017
» Unfolding Kafka Festival 2017 ended in Chiang Mai on Sunday. This year, under themes of gender identity, animals and folding and unfolding of the body and objects, the festival's performing arts programme doubled in size. Life reviews all the seven performances presented in Bangkok.
Freeform art
Life, Amitha Amranand, Published on 01/12/2017
» A decade ago, theatre was still seen an art form on the margin in Thailand. That is less true today. Visual art and design events are beginning to include theatre in their programmes. The new art and design event Freeform Festival has revived an abandoned school building at ACMEN Ekamai Complex with exhibitions, workshops, food trucks, plays and dance. Their performing arts programme is a solid one. Hopefully, this will become another platform for quality theatre in the future.
Passionate, but ultimately superficial
Life, Amitha Amranand, Published on 21/09/2017
» There is no shortage of passion and potential in the new Thai-language musical, 21¾, about the dreams and struggles of urbanites in their early 20s.
Life's agonies, magnified three-fold
Life, Amitha Amranand, Published on 24/08/2017
» Theatre director Bhanbhassa Dhubthien may not be known for novel or subversive interpretations of plays, but she has always worked with good actors, from whom she draws out the kind of nuanced performances we don't often see here in Thailand. She has also worked with texts of varying degrees of difficulty and ripeness. So even when the writing fails, her actors can always steer the production from complete disaster.
Walking in the rain
Life, Amitha Amranand, Published on 08/06/2017
» Heavy rain in Bangkok can deter people from a lot, including going to see a play in an unfamiliar or notoriously congested location. It should have also deterred Full Fat Theatre from staging a show in a warehouse that had not been converted into a performance space, meaning metal roof still intact and no acoustic design whatsoever. Alas, it didn't.
Asserting the female voice
Life, Amitha Amranand, Published on 19/01/2017
» Tonya Pinkins was one of the first actresses to ever perform Eve Ensler's seminal The Vagina Monologues, a theatre work in which women read out a number of monologues regarding female experience. In 1999, Pinkins starred alongside Brett Butler (Grace Under Fire) and Kimberly Williams-Paisley (Nashville) in the original off-Broadway production at the Westside Theater. The cast grew to 100 actresses over the course of that year, with three actresses per performance.
The joy of growing older
Life, Amitha Amranand, Published on 13/10/2016
» When middle age looms ever closer, every mistake, change and loss feels like it could seal your destiny and define your life. It's this sense of urgency and desperation that playwright and director Nophand Boonyai captures so well in his delightful new comedy Happy New Year, Mr. Smith.
Quirky Mahabharata epic that feels just a bit outdated
Life, Amitha Amranand, Published on 03/12/2015
» Literary epics are often treated with pomp and sumptuousness on the stage. Japanese theatre director and writer Hiroshi Koike brings the Mahabharata epic down to earth in his ambitious if clumsy Mahabharata Chapter 2.5.