When behind the scenes is centrestage

When behind the scenes is centrestage

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
When behind the scenes is centrestage

Jaturachai Srichanwanpen has become quite a household name in the theatre circle. He adapted Pisat Hua To (Big Head Monster) for the stage last year. He followed that up earlier this year with a leading role in Cacophonies, Grisana Punpeng’s adaptation of the Tennessee Williams play Vieux Carre. Now, he’s back again with The Comments, a collaboration with playwright Parnrut Kritchanchai, which will be staged at Democrazy Theatre Studio.

The cast of The Comments during a rehearsal.

The idea came to Jaturachai when he thought about typical post-performance experiences between a production’s cast and crew, who often spend hours exchanging ideas and opinions about each other’s performances and the audience. This is the angle he wanted to explore.

In an interview with Life, Jaturachai discussed his inspiration and the challenges involved in production.

Why The Comments?

I’ve been interested for a long time in the idea of how we, the cast and the crew, spend quite a long time together after the show — so long that it might be turned into a play of its own. I wanted to tell this story, but never knew the point of it. In the last five to six years we saw the rise in social networks like Facebook and Instagram on which people comment a lot, so I think now is a good time to do this.

What is it about?

The play is about what happens after a production. It tells a story of the cast and the crew who are waiting for the director to comment on their performance. But before the director comes, they start to comment on each other and also on the audience and critics.

So the process must have been different from other typical productions, can you talk a little about that?

I started by asking Parnrut to help write the first half of the performance and then we chose the cast. We chose those who we wanted to work with and according the nature of each person. We wanted a variety of characters together and therefore a range of styles when they comment and express their ideas. For the latter part of the show, I came up with the story myself.

But when we started rehearsing, we started improvising more and ended up using only part of Parnrut’s writing as a guideline. Things have been changed and added along the way. Improvising and playing games are the methods we use when rehearsing.

What has been the main challenge?

It’s really difficult because I’ve never done anything like this before. I’ve written my own script and I’ve adapted other people’s works, but this is a series of discoveries along the way with the cast.

There have been quite a few performances of this type, a play about the play itself, what’s the appeal in it?

I think it’s a coincidence, but then again there are a lot of productions like this, take Six Characters In Search Of An Author the 1921 Italian play by Luigi Pirandello, for example. I think of the theatre circle as another unit of society — using the creative process of theatre as a subject can create something that reflects the society as a whole.


- The Comments will run July 17-Aug 4 (except Tues and Wed) at 8pm at Democrazy Theatre Studio, Soi Sapankoo, Rama IV Road.
- Tickets cost 550 baht.
- Call 081-116-0066.

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