Tragedy in the locker room

Tragedy in the locker room

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
Tragedy in the locker room

Shakespeare's Othello gets transported from Venice and Cyprus into a stuffy football team's common room _ a perfect representation of a tight-knit community. And as in any tight-knit community, things turn incestuous pretty quickly.

Damkerng Thitapiyasak of New Theatre Society transforms the conflicts among men in an army into conflicts among boys in a fictional Thai Premier League football team.

The director-playwright portrays this culture as a sexually volatile one _ men and women are highly physical with one another regardless of the nature of their relationships. It is also a world more accessible to the privileged.

Othello, or Otto (Pramote Sangsorn) in this production, is a rural Thai boy and former junkie-turned-team captain who wins the heart of the club owner's daughter, Mona (Pavinee Samakkabutr). Iago, or Go (Nophand Boonyai) in this case, is a young man passionate about the sport to a destructive degree.

This adaptation of Othello comes with the subtitle, otHello: A Match Of Jealousy. There is, of course, the jealousy that stems from the sexual competition, but the more interesting jealousy in this play comes from the fact that Otto, the poor provincial boy, gets the professional recognition and the girl.

In the original play, Othello's decisions as an army general cause hatred in Iago and a rift between him and Cassio. In Damkerng's adaptation, Otto, as a team captain, has no authority over his teammates as he doesn't decide their suspension or removal. The authority, instead, rests in the hands of the club owner, who never appears onstage, but whose decisions and preferences play a significant role in the resentment among the footballers. Otto, then, is an even more powerless version of Othello.

As smart and successful as certain aspects of Damkerng's adaptation can be, the play doesn't feel entirely contemporary, nor is it always convincing. It is as though the director was a bit hesitant to stray from the plotline and the structure of the original.

He has kept the soliloquies and sometimes plays with the phrasing and the rhythm in the dialogue in a way that makes it a struggle for some of his actors. It is most bothersome when Otto recounts to Mona his past struggles, and we get nothing concrete, merely something resembling a poem recitation, making it difficult for the character to become fully formed in our imagination.

Moreover, Shakespeare's plot and his characters' motivations, when transposed into a contemporary context, can easily become over the top. And that is what otHello: A Match of Jealousy feels like. Killing one's teammates to be the top football player? In fact, it progressively becomes unclear to me what Go's problems are, why he has to go that far, or what exactly is at stake for any of the characters. The assertion that the tragedy is the result of jealousy alone is rather weak. The conflicts quickly devolve into those of spoilt, hormonal high school boys. In the end, Damkerng justifies Otto's meltdown and subsequent crime against his own girlfriend with his drug abuse problem _ a rather uninteresting and easy choice on Damkerng's part.

As a director, Damkerng likes to let things get out of control when he directs a comedy, and overwrought when he directs a drama. It is refreshing to see him exercise restraint in this production, only occasionally being heavy handed. His actors are focused, if in dire need of vocal training, and make up an appealing ensemble. Damkerng has always had a sharp sense for ensemble work.

Despite the major flaws, this may be his most controlled and thought-provoking effort to date.


otHello: A Match Of Jealousy continues its run until Monday, at 8pm (4pm matinee on Saturday), at Democrazy Theatre Studio, Soi Saphan Khu. Tickets are 480 baht. Call 08-2075-2002 or 08-9126-7122 (for English). With English subtitles.

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