The Production of Contemporary Lakhon Chatree Theatre: The Story of Drunken Meri

Abstract

This creative research aimed to 1) create a contemporary Lakhon Chatree theatre performance promoting awareness of “Meri Khimao” (drunken Meri) discourse; 2) evaluate audiences’ perception towards contemporary Lakhon Chatree theatre entitled “The Story of Drunken Meri”. The results revealed that the contemporary performance of Lakhon Chatree theatre entitled “The Story of Drunken Meri” was created by doing the theatre workshops with the performers to discover the stories, dialogues, and interesting performance techniques. The researcher, then, selected what the performers presented and developed to the drama scripts in line with the traditional Lakhon Chatree theatre. The “Meri Khimao” (drunken Meri) discourse was presented through the drama scripts, and the song and music. Currently cultural context such as spoken language, characters, places, were added to make it become contemporary. The researcher, in addition, still preserved the performance elements of the original Lakhon Chatree theatre. However, the elements of court dance and other kinds of central region performing arts were lessened and adjusted by either the style of Lakhon Chatree theatre in the past and modern performance techniques such as theatrical and lighting techniques. The audiences’ response indicated that the majority of the audiences were satisfied with this contemporary Lakhon Chatree theatre. They tended to perceive positive aspects towards the character – Meri. Likewise, the academics and professional performers agreed with how this production created the contemporary Lakhon Chatree theatre in the way that the maker did not abandon the identity of the Lakhon Chatree itself.