'Girl X' and beyond

IN FEBRUARY LAST year, Chulalongkorn University’s theatre production management professor Piyawat Thamkulangkool, with a grant from the Japan Foundation, watched Japanese theatre troupe Hanchu Yuei’s “Girl X” at Tokyo Performing Arts Market (TPAM). He enjoyed the fact that the two-character play with all its visuals, surtitles included, compatibly saved on computer was simple, clean and clear, and so he proposed to the Japan Foundation to bring it to the Bangkok Theatre Festival.
The three performances of “Girl X” at Sodsai Pantoomkomol Centre for Dramatic Arts were not a box office hit, but Thai critics loved it so much that they crowned it with the festival’s best play and original script awards to the company and its playwright-director Suguru Yamamoto.
That prompted Japan Foundation Bangkok to initiate a collaboration with Democrazy Theatre Studio and they picked Thanapol Virulhakul as Yamamoto’s collaborator in adapting “Girl X”.
It was a surprising choice but one that turned out for the best, as Thanapol loves working with physical movements and interaction with the audience while Yamamoto is a wordsmith. Along with the two Thai performers – Teerawat Mulvilai and Peerapol Kijreunpiromsuk – they spent several weeks together in Bangkok and Tokyo and presented a new version of “Girl X” at TPAM this February.
Last month saw them back together again in Bangkok continuing to develop their work.
This new version has been through many phases and has gone beyond adaptation to collaboration between Thanapol and Yamamoto. The house programme even says that Yamamoto was proposing a new title as it no longer deals with post-3-11 Japanese society.
“Girl X: Japan-Thailand Collaboration Version” at Democrazy Theatre Studio, the floor and back wall of which were painted white, started with Teerawat and Peerapol mumbling inaudible sentences. Once the audience had settled, they lay down on the floor. Simultaneously in Japanese, Thai and English, words, like a short description of artworks in an exhibition or a museum, were projected on the back wall. For the next engaging 70 minutes, as the audience read the changing captions focusing mainly on the two major wars in the last century, the performers mostly remained on the floor, occasionally shifting position, and it was obvious that they were far from comfortable. Soon, we realised who they represented, and those sitting on the top row on the audience stand, with the steepest angle towards the physical movements and captions, could see this first and feel it more.
As touching and compelling as it already was, I wished that the pace of the changing captions were more varied and that Yamamoto, as he did in his original “Girl X”, played more with colours and typography of his projection. Given the fact that the last performance at this venue also reminded us of October 6, 1976, another reminder here didn’t seem in line with the other wars mentioned in the captions.
For his part, Thanapol, who staged the multi-award winning “Hipster the King”, last year, wasn’t using the same old trick with his captions. This was subtler and he didn’t ask us to actively participate, but I, for one, hope he will use a new trick in his next work.
In comparison to the original “Girl X”, it’s clearly been a long journey for both Thanapol and Yamamoto, and a worthwhile one too. Much of the credit must go to the Japan Foundation, which provided immense support and allowed the pair ample time to really “communicate, connect and share, collaborate and create”.
No matter what the title – and the house programme says that they decided to keep the original title only to credit their starting point – this version of “Girl X” has now travelled well beyond Japan and Thailand, and beyond unnecessary discussion on whether it’s dance or theatre.
Let’s hope that Thanapol and Yamamoto continue to collaborate and learn from each other. Let us hope too that the many other projects that the Asia Centre has cooking in the years leading towards Tokyo 2020, are as delectable as this.
 LAST THREE
SHOWS
- “Girl X: Japan-Thailand Collaboration Version” runs at 8 nightly until Saturday at Democrazy Theatre Studio on Soi Saphan Khu, off Rama IV Road (MRT Lumphini, Exit 1). It’s in Japanese, Thai and English.
- Tickets are Bt300 (Bt250 in advance). For details, call (081) 441 5718 or check www.Facebook.com/|democrazystudio.