"Waterfall" reviews not enough to dampen Boy's ardour

THE CURTAIN CAME down on “Waterfall” at the Pasadena Playhouse in California on June 28 – the stage musical that Thais saw years ago as “Khang Lang Phaab” (“Behind the Painting”) – and co-director Takonkiet “Boy” Viravan is back home with a pocketful of reviews. 

They were split between positive and negative, Boy tells the newspaper Prachachat Turakij as he takes a break from a very long and very ambitious effort revamping the show for American audiences. “It comes down to a matter of taste – some liked it and others didn’t.” Doesn’t matter, because Boy thinks he still might make it to Broadway.

The reviewer for the San Gabriel Valley Tribune certainly found beauty in his musical. “‘Waterfall’ is not just another love story,” the writer said, and praised the stars – Sukrit “Bie” Wisetkaew and Emily Padgett. (She’s done a couple of TV movies but she did make it to Broadway last year with “Side Show” – though it, uh, flopped.)

The headline over the review in the Los Angeles Times was pretty damp: “‘Waterfall’ plunges over the edge of banality”. The show felt “ersatz” to the critic. Variety, the influential showbiz sheet, preferred the word “awkward”. In fact the majority of critics (obviously unfamiliar with Thai television) tended toward descriptions like “obsolete” and “melodramatic”. 

“This isn’t an excuse or anything, but the critics attended two different previews,” says Boy. “Those at the first one applauded the show, but at the second one the performances were not so good. We just need to stabilise things, I know.” 

Boy is fundamentally unfazed by the general lack of enthusiasm from southern California. “A lot of shows got bad reviews and yet kept going for decades!” But he’s taking in the constructive criticism and is preparing to make more adjustments to the show, with the unwavering aim to get it all the way to Manhattan. 

“We’ve tended to make some parts slower, and that doesn’t click with Americans. In other places two lines were fused into one, and that was considered clumsy, but we were trying to build up the emotion,” he says. 

And, anyway, it’s not like there was no one in the audience besides a couple of critics picking their noses. Boy says 80 per cent of the seats were sold. 

Next up, in October as scheduled, is the Avenue Theatre in Seattle, further up the West Coast. As for reaching the Great White Way in New York, Boy earlier told Siamtown, a newspaper for Thai expats in the US, that the decision would be made based on these first two engagements. And right now he’s focusing on Seattle. “If it’s no good, I’ll come home again. Why let it give me a headache?”