Not a successful 'Search'

Kittiporn “Tangmo” Rodvanich is currently one of the most exciting and unpredictable young actresses to watch. And with a good command of English and a wide range of character portrayals, she has been an obvious choice for both local Thai and English-language productions. Her latest performance was in Pico Theatre’s production of Jane Wagner’s “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe”, which won Wagner’s lifelong domestic partner, and now spouse, Lily Tomlin many accolades including a Tony Award in 1985. Ending its two-weekend run at Democrazy Theatre Studio last night, this solo performance was a big leap – and a major risk courageously taken – for Tangmo. I’m sure that if they had a chance to watch this small production, many theatre directors and companies would want to work with her.

Speaking of direction, a lack of it was the first and foremost flaw of this Bangkok production, performed in English with Thai surtitles. Tangmo’s vivacity never dropped throughout the show and it was, as always, a pleasure to watch her transform into various characters with extraordinary enthusiasm. She was commendably credible as the main character and narrator Trudy, the bag lady whose uniquely intriguing insights taught us a lot about life. However, some of the other characters didn’t really come alive largely because Tangmo couldn’t help us differentiate them through different accents of American English. And so, a vocal coach was also missing here. Tomlin performed this play when she was 46, after many successful comedy sketches; Tangmo is only 26 and so audience members couldn’t help but wonder who suggested the idea of performing this play in English.

Had there been a director, she would have also hired a sound designer, not a foley designer (someone who creates everyday sound effects). Pat Sangsuwan worked as laboriously as he would for a film production, trying to create all the soundscapes in the play but instead drowning out the solo performer’s spoken words, the most important element of this production. The foley operator might soon need a hand operation too: there are more than 500 sound cues. Admittedly, I understood most of the monologues by making use of my bilingual ability and glancing at the Thai surtitles. Pat probably forgot that audiences come to a play also to exercise their imagination and that a play can never be as realistic as a film. Also that the term foley design is used only in film. 

Content-wise, the play, unlike the much more universal “The Vagina Monologues”, is very specific to the 1980s New York City, although the audience still enjoyed a good laugh at “This is soup and this is art” when she compared Campbell’s tomato soup to Andy Warhol’s painting. But with “downtown” translated for the Thai surtitles as “the city centre” and “Riverside” as “the area next to the river”, it was evident that the production team had grown up in the Big Mango, not the Big Apple. And if they didn’t understand these contexts, how could we? In the added prologue, Tangmo explained to us why she didn’t use her real name Kittiporn here, also making reference to her former professor Pornrat and thus connecting with the audience. But when she started commenting on the “Walk/Don’t Walk” sign, we again knew that we were in a different place and time and our sense of alienation continued. 

Despite the phenomenal success in the US both in the 1980s and with the revival 20 years later, “Search” was far from a box office success in a country where English is not a second language but a foreign one. Last Sunday evening, there were eight people in the audience, and two of them left at the intermission, as they had another engagement and didn’t think the show’s running time would be three hours plus a 10-minute intermission – Tomlin’s pace would have been much quicker. Even though a play is written to be performed on the stage, this particularly play would surely have been better studied in a modern American drama class here than performed in English by a young Thai actress. 

 

 

 

Popping with Pico 

 

To keep track of Pico Theatre’s next productions, visit www.PicoTheatre.Webs.com.