Randy Will and funny Miguel

Last Year's “Women of Asia” was a palpable hit, and its playwright and director Asa Gim Palomera was both surprised and delighted.

“I wondered how Asian people would react to scenes and themes that were closer to home. I was gratified that the audience in Bangkok was able to identify with the play and ponder on the problems and situations it raised. In a way, it was a test of sorts to see if the ideas developed in it were understood and even more deeply felt by an Asian audience,” she says.

Bangkok is in fact the Korean-born director’s second home as she taught acting at Chulalongkorn University and staged productions with professional companies here in the 1980s and ’90s. Theatregoers in their 40s still remember her productions of “Rashomon”, “Asylum”, “La cage aux folles”, “The Odd Couple”, “Equus” and “Amadeus”. 

Afterwards, “Khru Asa”, as she’s known here rather than Madame Palomera, turned to writing her own plays.

“I thought I had my own words to say. Also, there seems to be a glut of famous plays being drawn and redrawn. We cannot live only by known stories; new stories must also be told. I learned to direct by staging plays by the dead and the famous. The next step was logical, to write my own tales and direct them as I saw fit.”

“Women of Asia” and “Prodigal Daughter” were among those that followed, with most of her works focusing on women and their roles in the contemporary world. 

For that reason, “The Curious Lives of Shakespeare and Cervantes” doesn’t seem like her cup of tea.

“If you write about women, you have to write about men too – they exist in the same universe,” Khru Asa points out.

“ This play is about human experience, a way to put some humanity into authors that have been overly idolised, to show that they too lived in an imperfect world and suffered similar tensions to us. I was tired of hearing songs from ‘West Side Story’ and ‘Man of La Mancha’ and wondering where they had sprung from.

“In this play, we get a glimpse into the Bard’s life, his women and his success as opposed to Cervantes’s failure as a playwright. We’ll see his women too, and his travels to write ‘Don Quixote’ against a political background. We feel their pulses like our own even though they lived 500 years ago and with luck, we will lose the fear of the unknown.”

Khru Asa has already staged the play in Melbourne, Edinburgh and Singapore to critical acclaim. The Edinburgh Evening News’ critic wrote, “There is a chemistry at work which transcends expectations”, adding, “it’s an engaging and hilarious 90-minute performance.” 

And why do we in Thailand, never colonised by either Spain or England, need to watch this?

“Seneca, a Roman philosopher of Spanish origin, said it very well, ‘I am human and nothing human do I deem alien to me’. This play is about the lives of men and women, their joys and their sorrows, love and their humour,” Khru Asa explains. 

“You don’t need to have been colonised to appreciate that. You can recite all the sonnets of Shakespeare without understanding them and it will sound beautiful to the ear. Most of his plays are unfathomable in words and it is only through the actions that we know the gist, and that’s why we’re afraid of and bored with them.”

Khru Asa also imagined what would happen had two of the greatest writers of all time met. The Englishman would say, “I would love to work on your ‘Donkey Hottie,’ and the Spaniard would have to correct him, “Don Quixote!!!”

 

TILTING AT WINDMILLS

The Bangkok Theatre Festival wraps up on Sunday with awards from the Thailand centre of the International Association of Theatre Critics.

“The Curious Lives of Shakespeare and Cervantes” will be performed at 7.30pm on Friday and 2 and 7.30pm on Saturday at the Sodsai Pantoomkomol Centre for Dramatic Arts, a 10-minutes walk along Henri Dunant road from BTS Siam Exit 6.

It’s in English and Spanish with Thai surtitles. The running time is 90 minutes, with post-show discussion with the artists (in English and Thai). Tickets cost Bt600 (Bt 300 for students; Bt400 for the under-27s).

Call (02) 218 4802 and (081) 559 7252 or check www.BangkokTheatreFestival.com.