Their Survival and Ours

With support from the Wellcome Collection, members of B-Floor Theatre spent the latter part of last year in residence at the Wellcome Trust Mahidol University-Oxford University Tropical Medicine Research Programme (MORU), as part of Wellcome’s global resi?dency programme called “Art in Global Health”. They’ve now transformed the insight and knowledge gained during their rare expedition into medical science research into “Survival Games”, a collaboration with the Chiang Mai-based all-female shadow puppet theatre troupe Wandering Moon.
Co-directors Teerawat Mulvilai and Nana Dakin have found a good balance between medical science and physical the?atre in this 80-minute performance. Die-hard fans of B-Floor might find that “Survival Games” is less cheeky and more literary and straightforward than other B-Floor works, but the play, which is neither too scientific nor too artistic, is aimed at a wider public, hence the free admission.
In fact, it’s a good opportunity to intro?duce contemporary Thai theatre to many scientific-minded individuals. The more artistic-minded might also realise that medical science, when presented carefully, can also be quite comprehensible, a good thing as it has implications for each of our lives.
Thanks to the substantial support, the otherwise mundane auditorium was deftly transformed into a venue with simple yet practical set pieces that supported the style of the performance. Entering the venue, each audience member became a passenger on a survival ship and was asked a few questions by the cast and crew that were recorded on cassette tapes – amazingly the prop master was actually still able to find some! I was asked to give my name, the date of my last sexual activity and to state my question about life. I am not sure if the lady queuing up behind me was posed the same second question.
Later, we watched the six-member ensemble’s physical movements as they switched roles back and forth between dis?eases and humans, listened to their dia?logues and witnessed how Wandering Moon’s, whose work is rarely seen in Bangkok, shadow puppet theatre worked its theatrical magic on the backdrop. Then, we learned about disease, and especially about melioidosis, a major infectious disease in Thailand, and yet one that a the?atregoer like myself had never heard of.
The performance never felt like a scientific class, with the information being communicated through different the?atre arts and at a leisurely and chewable pace. An exception was the video excerpt of a medical scientist projected on the back?drop – it was perhaps too straightforward in the midst of all these artistic creations. I particularly enjoyed learning that diseases have their own lives and families: it’s just that their survival is a threat to ours. Despite melioidosis being presented in a mascot costume, it never looked cartoonish. Humour and satire were also tastefully interspersed in the subplot, in which an action horror musical movie about melioi?dosis was in the making, with a major Hollywood star as a producer and a lead actor. And by the end, I’d realised that I need to take a bet?ter care of my health.
“Survival Games” served as a reminder of how arts and sci?ences are interconnected – both are directly related to humans – and of the fact that this kind of interdisci?plinary work really should get support from our government. That also reminded me of Seinendan Theatre Company’s android- human theatre “Sayonara”. Brought here by the Japan Foundation and Osaka University, it was a big hit among engineer?ing students last March, though not with Japanese language students.
Unlike most countries in the world, stu?dents in Thailand have to decide at around the age of 15 whether to further their stud?ies in the arts or sciences and thus ignore one or the other. We can only hope that our education system will change soon.
 

 BOOK NOW
- “Survival Games” continues at the Pridi Banomyong Institute on Thong Lor tonight to Sunday at 8pm. It’s in Thai with English surtitles.
- Admission is free, but you should reserve your seat by calling (089) 167 4039 or e-mailing [email protected].
- Visit www.BFloorTheatre.com, www.WellcomeCollection.org/Global, and www.TropMedRes.ac
- Watch at video clip www.NationMultimedia.com.