Performance as Criticism – Criticism as Performance

Abstract

Through his exposure to Western performing arts during several decades, the author, also steeped in the performing culture of his own country, has come to realize that criticism does not always function as an independent discourse communicated by the critic, but that works of art themselves do criticize each other. By way of analyzing concrete examples drawn from the fields of literature, theatre, music, radio and television, he has come to the conclusion that criticism inherent in the performing arts possesses a suggestive power that can awaken a critical reception from the public, a power that should be exploited to the full in the media age that tends to stultify creative and critical sensitivity in the people. As far as theory formation is concerned, these concrete experiences have prompted the author to propose a theory of “approximative communication” that can strengthen the hermeneutic capacity of a society, as supremely exemplified by the metamorphosis of semantics into phonetics in the parody, Phra Malethethai, by the lady poet, Khun Suwan, in the reign of Rama III.