Treading the boards at the BACC

The Bangkok Festival, now in its 11th year, opened on November 2 at a new main venue – the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (BACC). The move from Phra Sumen Fortress wasn’t smooth and the communication, which perhaps relied too much on Facebook, didn’t get out in time. A student of mine was thinking of going to the performances in cafes and restaurants along Phra Athit road but found herself totally confused by the new programme schedule, which was simply added to the original.
However, the shows are going on.
The main stage is on Phayathai Road, opposite Siam Discovery, meaning that the stage performances are having to compete with the traffic noise and anti-amnesty demonstrations.
On the first evening, Ongsa Silp’s opening act was successful in capturing the audience’s full attention but Theatre Shop’s “The Egg Story Tronoh” which followed and which was in English and provided no translation, failed in its efforts to entertain.
New Theatre Society’s quadruple bill “Perfectly Imperfect” (“Khat Khat Keon Keon”), was originally scheduled to be staged at the Jazz Happens Bar on Phra Athit Road. The four directors coped with the move to the BACC by staging the first two plays in a small meeting room on the fourth floor and the other two at the Chuchai gift shop in the centre’s third-floor arcade.
In the first play “The Girl Next Door” by Parnrut Kritchanchai, seasoned actor Kriangkrai Fukasem delivered yet another knockout performance – his portrayal of an autistic man was so completely credible that the title character was almost non-existent.
Damkerng Thitapiyasak’s production of David Ives’ “The Universal Language” was another acting showcase as veterans Priya Wongrabeab and Suphasawatt Puranaveja matched each other up line by line, comic punch by comic punch.
Grisana Punpeng then poked satirical fun at how theatre students make use of Google Translate in his playlet “Brokeback Mountain”. Finally, Setsiri Nirandorn’s “Visit the Store” was both hilarious and thought provoking as a satire on how a street vendor tries every possible way to please his customer.
The BACC’s fourth-floor studio is now a “black box” space where selected ticketed performances are taking place every evening. As the Bangkok Theatre Network would like to showcase as many works as possible in this room, each work is allocated about 30 minutes of performance time.
Last Wednesday, a triple bill commenced with Manop Meejamrat’s dance theatre “Trap”, a contemporary adaptation of classical drama “Phra Suthon-Manora”, reinterpreted with a pivotal Buddhist lesson.
Next up was Bangplay Learning Theatre Group’s “Just Change”, which offered a reminder of how rice fields and farmers in our country have been affected by the construction of new infrastructures and served as an example of how a professional theatre company can work efficiently with university theatre students.
Rounding out the programme was 8X8 Theatre Group’s “Killing Memory” in which a group of company employees reenacted possible scenarios of their former CEO’s mysterious death, with playwright Nikorn Sae Tang walking the thin line between scripted play and improvisational performance.
With the house lights kept on, it was almost like the audience was invited to participate though that wasn’t actually the case.
Ten minutes before the end of the last play, though, the performance was interrupted by a recorded public announcement of the BACC’s closing time. The actors took notice of it at first but continued with the play when it was repeated.
If department stores with cineplexes on their upper floors can find a way for those attending the late shows to leave after midnight, then surely the BACC, which runs on our tax money, can do the same. With its “Performative Festival” continuing until mid-December, the 7pm curtain time for dance and theatre programmes is absurd given the evening traffic mayhem.

SEVEN MORE DAYS
The Bangkok Theatre Festival runs until Sunday at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre. There are also shows at Chulalongkorn University’s Sodsai Pantoomkomol Centre for Dramatic Arts as well as the B-Floor Room and Crescent Moon Space at the Pridi Banomyong Institute on Thonglor.
For more details, check out “Bangkok Theatre Festival” on Facebook.