What if you’d made a different decision?

In Amrican playwright Craig Wright’s “The Pavilion”, which is set at a high school reunion 20 years on, a man, Peter, who ran away after his high-school sweetheart Kari decided to have an abortion, now wants to win her back notwithstanding her husband. Thai playwright and director Jaturachai Srichanwanpen’s “Tuek Khunying Ree”, or “Madam Ree Building”, is, in his words, a “response” to the original play with a different premise: “What if they had decided to keep the baby and get married” 
And while Jaturachai prefers the term “response” anybody who may have read or watched “The Pavilion” and observes the similarities in “Madam Ree Building”, might prefer to call it an “adaptation”. 
These include a discussion of the parallel universe by the narrator, which adds a poignant dimension to this play and the casting choice in which the narrator also performs other supporting characters, mostly old friends attending a reunion prior to the demolition of a historic building.
Set designer Ben Busarakam-awong’s arena stage setting with extra space behind the audience rows cleverly allows the actors to draw on the walls.
Also, the casting choice in which the narrator also performs other supporting characters, mostly old friends attending a reunion prior to the demolition of a historic building, is just like the original play. 
While also introducing the three main protagonists – high school sweethearts Somyot and Wipha and their college student son Tako – the first half of this 90-minute play is filled with many colourful supporting characters and much comedy. The play gets back on track only when the subject of Wipha’s unwanted teen pregnancy is raised by a friend. At the point, the play, mainly through Wipha, starts to discuss the “What if”, and the audience realises that some minor characters have so little relevance that they could have been cut and the time saved devoted to this family of three and their memories of the doomed building. 
Seasoned thespians Suphasawatt Puranaveja and Parnrut Kritchanchai are effortless— individually—as Somyot and Wipha, but not believable as a couple who have been married for 20 years. The latter is more attuned to comedy than drama, and in the scene with her son (Wisarut Himmarat), she doesn’t look or sound like a mother. In the end the play’s main message seems like one we already know by heart. Meanwhile, Yadamin Jamsuksai, without ever changing her costumes, deftly and credibly portrays the narrator and other supporting characters with different body postures and movements as well as voice tones.
While not a musical, this supposedly heartfelt play has seven songs, five of which are newly composed. While the new ones are delightful and add more meaning to the play, Witsarut is the only actor who does justice to the compositions with his singing and guitar playing. Indeed Suphasawatt and Parnrut were so uncomfortable delivering these songs on opening night last Thursday that, at the curtain call when Yadamin announced that pre-orders of the CD could be placed, one audience member asked who sang on the CD, and she cunningly replied, “It’s a different version”. 
I personally have softer spots for people than things. About 10 years ago, a similar reunion was held one late evening before the demolition of a building. This play made me think of that building as it was there that I stole first kiss and where my first office was. 
The bottom line is that realising neither things nor people last forever, I didn’t go to that reunion and I’ve never wondered what if I had gone or the building had stayed.
STILL TIME TO WATCH
 - “Madam Ree Building” continues tonight and from Thursday to Monday, and February 23 to 27, 
at 8pm and 3pm on Sunday at Democrazy Theatre Studio, 5-minute walk from MRT Lumphini station, exit 1. 
- It’s in Thai with English surtitles. 
- Tickets are Bt500at (081) 441 5718 Find out more at Facebook.com/DemocrazyStudio.