**The performance art of ‘nang yai’ was almost lost forever, but one troupe of puppeteers found it a new audience **
Published: 5/09/2010 at 12:00 AM
Newspaper section: Brunch
The sound of traditional Thai music can be heard loudly and clearly upon entering Wat Khanon in Photharam district of Ratchaburi on Saturday mornings. It is a signal to visitors that a nang yai, a large shadow play, will be starting shortly.
From the temple car park, you can see the open-air hall which houses the stage for the performance and can accommodate an audience of up to 100.
When the temple’s abbot, Phra Khru Pitaksilmpakhom, steps onto the stage, the music gradually fades down. He greets visitors and briefly tells the history of nang yai, as well as the story about to be performed.
He speaks quickly, maybe because he speaks from personal experience - he used to be a nang yai master before joining the monkhood.
The performance, which can be traced back to the Ayutthaya period, originated in Ratchaburi with the abbot of Wat Khanon, Phra Khru Satthasunthorn, aka Luang Pu Klom (1848-1942), in the reign of King Rama V, about 150 years ago.
The late abbot was a great admirer of the art, said Phra Khru Pitaksilmpakhom, and he had the idea of making the puppets larger than usual and had asked a respected teacher and two master craftsmen to create the figures.
The first collection was called Hanuman Thawai Waen, or the White Monkey King offering a Ring. They gained the audience’s attention immediately because they combined various arts, including well-crafted puppets, classical dance performance, traditional pipat music and the lyrical chanting of khon (mask performances), said the abbot. Later on nine more puppet collections were created due to the widespread popularity of the performances.
However, over time, the popularity of the large puppets faded, and completely disappeared during World War II. But in 1987, a team of puppeteers gathered at Wat Khanon with the hope off bringing the forgotten performance art back to an audience.
“We struggled for more than two years. It was hard to find any supporters,” said Phra Khru Pitaksilmpakhom, who was one of the performers. He said the team then decided to offer the temple’s treasured century-old puppets to HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn.
The princess extended her support in 1989 and asked the temple to preserve its original 313 puppets, which today can be seen in the temple’s museum.
A team from Silpakorn University took on the responsibility of creating a new set of nang yai characters and presented them to the princess in 1995, at the National Theatre in Bangkok.
The princess then bestowed the new collection to Wat Khanon, to be used in performances.
“It was fortunate that we could continue our beloved work again,” he said.
Phra Khru Pitaksilmpakhom said nang yai was always based on Ramayana or Ramakien stories, and compared with other shadow plays, nang yai is unique for the size of its puppets.
As the name suggests (yai, or big), each puppet is quite large at 1-2 metres in height and 0.50-1.50 metres wide, and each can weigh 3-7kg. Each figure is crafted from one piece of ox hide before being painted.
The puppets do not have articulated heads, arms or legs, and have two sticks for the puppeteer to hold. Being such a large size, they need one puppeteer to hold each puppet.
Nang yai also differs from other shadow plays in terms of performance. Normally, puppeteers in a shadow play are required to sit behind a large white screen and a spotlight, but the nang yai puppeteers work in front of a bright white screen about 16 metres long.
“So the audience can admire the beauty of each puppet as well as enjoy performance of the puppeteers,” said the abbot.
Each puppeteer must learn how to dance according to the character they hold, such as fast movements for a monkey or a sliding strong walk for a demon. There are also small characters in the performance, allowing primary school children to learn the art when they are still young.
“I like being a puppeteer because I enjoy dancing,” said a 10-year-old student of Wat Khanon School, which is near the temple. He manipulates a small monkey puppet around the same size as himself. It is a member of the troupe of the white monkey king, or Hanuman. Panya Ieamkaew, another puppeteer, is a 15-year-old student from the same school who said he loved the art of nang yai and had been performing for five years. “I love the beat and I can also earn a little money from my performance too,” he noted.
At present, there are about 50 students in the troupe and they are regularly trained by the abbot and other masters, including traditional music teachers in the temple.
Because of this attempt to preserve part of the nation’s cultural heritage, the Asia-Pacific Cultural Centre for Unesco gave an award to the Wat Khanon troupe in 2007 for its active role in safeguarding what Unesco calls “intangible cultural heritage”.
“We will continue our work because this performance has value for our lives and the community,” said the abbot.
USEFUL INFORMATION
Wat Khanon holds a free demonstration of nang yai every Saturday at 10-11am. It can also arrange a performance on other dates, times or places depending on request, but there is a fee that starts at 2,500 baht. For more details, call Wat Khanon on 03-223-3386 or visit the Tourism Authority of Thailand’s website at http://www.tourismthailand.org.
Bron: Bangkok Post / www.bangkokpost.com