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Theme: Flim, Theatre, Dance and Music The Asian Conference on Arts and Cultures 2014 Srinakharinwirot University, Bangkok , Thailand

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Sasiwipa Richardson, Lanna Folk Contemporary Dramatic Play

Wanasak Padungsestakit The Faculty Of Fine and Applied Arts, Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University, Thailand

E-mail : [email protected], [email protected] Phone Number: (662) -1601396

Abstract

This research issues for studying the method of making playwriting and directing of contemporary dramatics arts which improved from autobiography of 4 folk artists namely Jansom Saitara (national artist in acting arts 1996), Buason Muangpraw (national artist in acting arts 2013), Buatong Kaewphan and Jampa Sanprom. And this folk Lanna contemporary performance emphasizing the co-working of many branch of artists as the play writers, designers and musicians. The play had co-developed between the researcher ,the play writer and actor, adapting and searching during the rehearsal, to suit with the senior female feddling artist, so the basics of work is on exchanging and learning from the actor how to real perform and reveal the potential of actor to perform and suit with performance.

The making of this play reveals the new vision of researcher and the audiences seeking the truth from the scene in “Sasiwipa Richardson”, to said that “the truth of each scene” to the question what is the reality. And “the truth of life” is any truth that the actor is doing from the scene which making to tell the story sharing the experience of “Sasiwipa Richardson” likes slide of life reflecting ,viewpoint and settled positive attitude which benefit to society. The picture that viewed in this play which the audiences used to and could compare to new story, think, analysis and compare “Sasiwipa Richardson” to their perception and thought.

Key Words: Lanna Artist, Lanna Folk Arts, Contemporary Dramatic Play, Female Artist, Artist Life, Folk Contemporary Art, Structure

Introduction

This article is a part of Rattanakosin Art and Cultural Research named ‘A Study of the Process in Contemporary Dramatic Script Creation Developed from Lanna Folk Performing Arts’ of Suan Sunandha Rajabhat Research and Development Institute. Sasiwipa Richardson is an experimental play as a Western style of interpretation and direction are applied to narrate an autobiography of the Lanna female artist, who has a great fondness for local folk music, ignores the mainstream culture of the society, and determines to earn a living with this local art. The researcher

aims to create a play developed from the autobiography; the play’s scripts and the narration are inspired from an interview of skillful and famous Lanna female artists. These four Pleng Saw artists, Master Chansom Saitara (National Artist in the Performing Arts- Folk Performances 1996), Master Buason Muangproud (National artist in acting arts 2013), Master Buatong Kaewfun and Master Champa Saenprom, have been selected as their different ways of life from other Lanna women. The scripts are created and developed in the manner of contemporary plays/ performances, emphasizing on a story of

The Asian Conference on Arts and Cultures 2014 Srinakharinwirot University, Bangkok , Thailand

the protagonist which the audiences can easily follow. Presenting the story this way would probably reflect the society, the passion of art, the belief and intention carried on this Lanna performance. It might create awareness in the audiences about the significant of folk arts and understanding of culture and the folk artists’ way of life. The article purposes to tell the story about the female folk artist whose life is not a bed of roses, whose freedom of spirit is to be distinctive and independent, whose great dedication, discipline and goal is to produce a new play named ‘Sasiwipa Richardson’. The study and the development of this play have begun from the researcher’s own interest toward life of Master Champa Saenprom; Master Champa is admired as the folk artist who devotes her life in maintaining and conserving the art of Pleng Saw amongst the mainstream of modern performances, and passing the precious knowledge of Lanna folk music to students and some Northern art and culture club sin various university in Bangkok. Additionally, she has established Lanna Art and Cultural School of Bangkok at VachirathamSatit School in Bangkok, as Lanna arts and culture learning centre teaching Lanna folk music, local folk singing (Pleng Saw), local performing arts, and Lanna dialect. The school opens to the public with no admission fee. According to the above information, the researcher decides to collaborate with a playwright and the artist (Master Champa Saenprom) in order to create and develop the scripts narrating the story in a manner of autobiography. Research Method

In the beginning, the interview of 4 Lanna artists has been conducted as primary data to develop the new scripts. Then, movies concerning with autobiographies of the world and national famous artists have been selected as sources to study about the strategies in constructing the script and directing the contemporary dramatic play.

Issues of autobiography related books and articles are studied as one of the methods in developing the scripts. The autobiographical writing can represent an evolution of individual and mostly involved with the remembrance. The remembrance might not be only related to the story of life, but also the past, knowledge, culture, and festival that the writer had experienced. Reading these documents can provoke an understanding that the writing autobiography is considered as a method telling the true story, which could be either ordinary or special, about the writer’s life by using timeline as a linkage between the individual and social events. Some works might seem to be a novel more than an autobiography. However, it based on the writer’s fact; this style is applied just to make the story become more flavorful and interesting.

One of the resources that the researcher has studied to create a play is movie. Movies related to autobiographies of the famous people and artists, were selected such as Poompuang Duangchan, Coco Chanel and Ray. The main characters of these movies share some common traits for instances being ambitious, being a dream-hunter and being intent on living life with free mind and spirit.


Findings

The interview about autobiography of the four Lanna female artists was conducted to create the background and make the protagonist herself become more realistic. Life of the Lanna female Pleng Saw artist can be summarized as following;

1. The family background - Those artists were grown up in poverty, resided in rural areas, stayed close to the nature and the folk culture, and lived in close community. Most of them finished school in 4thgrade, the compulsory education in Thailand at that time. With the fondness for Pleng Saw, they went to see masters of Pleng Saw and asked for attaching themselves to the masters in order to learn singing Pleng Saw. If they were allowed to learn singing, they would stay with their masters and help them doing chores or farming. In the spare time, knowledge of Pleng Saw would be transferred to the pupils by means of the master singing the Pleng Saw and then the pupil allowed singing along. This teaching requires a great endurance and good memory to remember all the lyrics since most masters and pupils were illiterate. When the pupils were considered that they could accurately remember all Pleng Saw and get along with music, the master would take them to see the master’s performance and allow them to sing along softly. Finally, considered as becoming a professional and being able to perform Pleng Saw individually, a ceremony called ‘Bang Phee Kru Saw’ would be held to give moral support and blessing to the pupils. The four Masters have released some recordings, which concerning both world issues and religious aspects, and highly acclaimed by the listeners.

2. Family and marriage - Most Lanna women usually get married when they are over 20 years old. These four artists have contained the natural beauty of appearances and voices so, undoubtedly, this attracted many guys coming to them. Despite meeting a lot of guys, there was nothing occurred as all masters strongly believe in monogamous traditional relationships. The researcher has noticed that trust, respect, and understanding the way of being Pleng Saw singer is required a last long marriage. However, in Master Champa’s case, her husband was a hardcore gambler so she decided to divorce and moved to Bangkok. In case of Master Buason Muangproud, on the other hand, she had quit being a Pleng Saw singer for 19 years and working on farming instead for she could look after her children. Master Buason became the Pleng Saw singer once again when she was 44 since her children grown up. It is noticeable that these masters have followed the ‘qualities of good wife’ which the Lanna women should be. The women have been restricted to the social conventions that men are the family’s leaders who have an authority that women have to depend on them. This convention sometimes obstructs some Lanna women’s freedom of living. 3. Occupation: Pleng Saw- Patterns of these four artists are pretty similar, they producing both conventional and contemporary pieces of work, especially easily accessed lyrics and contents. The variety of books, especially those related to Buddhism, folk tales and Dhamma teaching have been used as a source to compose a song. Moreover, in order to compose a song filled with moral lessons, listening to the Buddhist monks’ teaching and collaboration with academics in the field of folk culture


inspire ideas and generate useful knowledge that could be applied to the works. In addition, a style of singing Pleng Saw that is developed to be more interesting and unique is highly accepted by the audiences like Saw play of Master Chansom Saitara. 4. Work- Master Chansom, Master Buason and Master Buatong have lived and worked in Chiang Mai Province, where Pleng Saw performance is held regularly at the festival and ritual ceremony within the province and the neighboring provinces. Master Champa, on the other hand, after moving to Bangkok, she had stopped working on singing Pleng Saw for 4 years and worked as a therapist and hairdresser instead. After joining the Buddhist ceremony and having a chance to sing, Master Champa began to be the Pleng Saw Master and started to participate with the Northern Community of universities in Bangkok. In the beginning, Master Champa’s performance had not been popular since urban people could not totally understand the Northern dialect and accent. Hence, in order to call for the attention, she was standing and dancing while singing Pleng Saw, which breaking down the norm of singing. Sometime performers have to spend their own money paying for the organizers in order to have an opportunity to perform on stage with no pay, which is called ‘Sue Saw’. Group of Master Champa often drank alcohol before going on the stage which was unaccepted and insulted (as they were called drunkard dorks). Hence, Master Champa started to organize, reform, and create new image of her group. She quit smoking and drinking in order to be a role model for other members and focused only on working to maintain money paying for

Sue Saw since it is about to run out. Resulting from hard working and brand new image, Champa has gain more acknowledgement among the artists in Bangkok. 5. Dedication to the job - The dedication in being Pleng Saw singers of these four Lanna artists has been nationally and internationally acclaimed. They are often invited by various art and cultural organizations to lecture and demonstrate the folk song singing.

Four Lanna Female Artist

1. Jansom Saitara (national artist in acting arts1996)

2. Buason Muangpraw (national artist in acting arts 2013)


3. Buatong Kaewphan

4. Jampa Sanprom.

After studying the autobiographies of the four masters, theme of the play that would be presented is ‘a freedom of mind and spirit of the Lanna female artist aiming to have a distinctive and independent life, the great dedication to work, the discipline and the goals of life’.

Resulting from the movie, most protagonists from Poompuang Duangchan, Coco Chanel and Ray are growing up along with problems of the families such as economic problem or divorce. Facing this tough and lonesome situation, as a result, pushes the characters to pursue a new better life. Switching between past and present time

is used as a means to move the story forward and display the significant situations which motivated and affected each character’s behaviors. The process in narrating the story of the three mentioned movies is summarized as follows.

- Story related to the family during a childhood, living in poverty => parents’ works, upbringing - Attaching him/herself to an expert of particular skill => learning and growing in the new path - Love and family life => working for his/her own family - Hard working, being dedicated to be proficient =>skilful artist/ fashion designer with signature style - Becoming a famous and admirable person => being an expertise in the working field

This process of the movies created more understanding to the researcher about the narration of autobiography such as going back to the past to tell the character’s important events, conflicts of the characters between roles/ functions and the characters’ own desire of being freedom which contrasting to the expectation of the family or society.


Discussion

Structure of the autobiography from the interview

Table 1

Conflict What the individual wants to be, and what the society wants them to be => role/ function of being a good wife and good mother

Crisis

Stop singing due to family problem, but still taking care of children and husband and doing housework etc. Start singing again because neighbors or acquaintances asking to perform at the ceremony or festival – (people who have known them for a long time)

Goal

Being intent to sing Pleng Saw, struggling with problems and obstacles regarding to family and couple –using Pleng Saw to nourish soul and life

Next, organizing the gathered data and theories is applied to interpret and analyze the text and performance. Sasiwipa Richardson, which is considered as the research and hybrid theatre, integrates the way of telling a story in the Western style by using Lanna folk songs in narrating the story of one Lanna female artist who dedicates herself in transmitting and preserving the Lanna culture. The researcher analyzed and created a story of Sasiwipa Richardson based on the method of synthesizing data and implementing strategies in analyzing and directing the

Western play. This process leads to the scripts that opened for the performer, who has great potential in folk song singing, to take part in developing the scripts. In the beginning, the researcher, the playwright, and the performer were collaborating to create linear plot and condition of using Lanna folk songs in narrating the story. The strategies of character analysis that applied to the main character of the play could create more understandings about Sasiwipa. The connections between the story of Sasiwipa and senior artists at this time, and the theme and the super demand of the character are regarded as the characteristic of modern play.

Structure of the scripts of ‘Sasiwipa Richardson’

Table 2

New story created from the synthesized autobiographical data

Pleng Saw

The Award of Honor ‘Mother of the Year in the field of conservation and promotion of Thai culture’ maternal feeling/ artist’s

Wai Kru or paying homage to the master, roughly introducing Pleng Saw to the audiences


award of Sasiwipa Richardson Being against with the norms and conventions => lively childhood, chore hater, asking for equality, having a free mind and having conflicts with father

Childhood part telling a family background - Auay Joy =>lullaby

Ideas about family - Independent life and happiness - First love, role of woman => breaking up and finding the new better way of life - Abortion, leaving a child and rejecting marriage life => path of being a Pleng Saw singer

Song of flirting a guy + five precepts - Breaking a norm of singing Pleng Saw, woman making a first move, being against patriarchal norms - Saw of five precepts => contrasting to what the society values –irony of the teaching and practicing - Freedom of life/ work => like a bird in a fine cage, feeling safe and sound, no struggling - Value of being a Pleng Saw singer => escaping from the norm, finding a new way of life and new hope, leaving home/ Auay Joy, singing with no lyric and meaning

Life on the road of being a Pleng Saw singer - Working happily, time of prospering but not paying attention on happiness/ proudness - Changing society, having no attempt to find a new job – getting bored with the job, preferring a modern and thrilled life => going to the foreign country - Singing Pleng Saw at the Buddhist ceremony, becoming well-known/ wanting to teach Pleng Saw => having conflict with foreign husband/ expectation of the man => coming back to Thailand

Being at the crossroad - Retorting with the songs=> conventional norms of being a virgin Lanna woman, stories with moral lessons to preserve a purity/ Sao Krua Fah, Nang Bua Ban - Lanna women who wishing for better life by means of going out with the foreigners

Starting a new life => returning to live with the former husband, living with the child that not belong to her, becoming unbearable to the new family then leaving her husband and going back to Chiang Mai = Auay Joy

Song of emotions - Representing the confusion and distressed due to having neither role nor function of being a mother. Feeling like having no space in this world for her to belong to and questioning about the current situation and the future. All the feelings are expressed through the harsh voice with no lyrics

Ending - Coming back to hometown - Invited to perform the Pleng Saw at Lanna Cultural Festival at Cultural Center => making money by performing Pleng Saw, being famous in national and regional level


- Refusing to get the Award => contrasting to what the society values and accept – being confused between the state of the Award and the functions of being maternal/woman

After planning the structure of the new play, the researcher and the playwright has implemented and synthesized the autobiographical data of those four Pleng Saw masters in order to develop the scripts to be a narration of an autobiography in the protagonist’s perspective. Sasiwipa Richardson contains a message of how the Pleng Saw female artist has made up her mind and selected her own way of life. This also generates more understandings about being the Lanna female master of Pleng Saw and the strategies in creating the scripts in folksong form which could communicate with the modern society easier and provoke more awareness about the values of the Lanna artists. The structure of the scripts contains linear characteristics that developed from the autobiography and Lanna music. Then, the structure of the play has been developed further with the collaboration of the playwright and the performer. As the story is closely related to the life of the performer herself, the given circumstance that the senior artist (Sasiwipa Richardson) could tell her own stories is a ten-year anniversary of receiving the award. The story of Sasiwipa ranging from her childhood until the present has been told to the audiences. Significant events during each vital period of her lifetime, which connected with the background especially the time and context that affected the state of being the Pleng Saw master, are also narrated. The play has been arranged in sequences to link the past to the present by dramatic time. This

could represent the personality of being against the conventional norms of the Lanna society; disliking doing any chore, asking for equality, loving to perform Pleng Saw, and having a conflict with father. This conflict motivates the protagonist to hunt for becoming the master of Pleng Saw. After that, she has been known in national level as the folk song master who dedicates herself to conserve and pass on the wisdom of Lanna culture to the young, and awarded to be ‘Mother of the Year’. However, she refuses to receive the Award as she is in a state of confusing between the roles and functions of a good woman, a meaning of living, her space, and her path in the future. This play might give a variety of feelings as if watching a life of a dream-hunter. After the end of the play, the researcher wants the audiences to impress and to think, to question and to analyze the experiences from the performance on the stage. To communicate with the audiences, some kinds of art like local music and Pleng Saw songs containing the message that related to the question of the protagonist are applied in order to rearrange the timeline and story chronologically. The performer has been selected due to criteria of being able to sing Pleng Saw. In addition, the researcher wants the performer to take part in creating the story and implementing her attitudes to develop the story from Pleng Saw songs. After making an understanding and


running workshop with the performer about scripts, the body movement and the developing scripts from the major circumstances are connected with the structure of the new scripts. Pleng Saw songs portraying each major event of the protagonist’s life have produced to reflect the Lanna society, and to question about the restricted Lanna conventions in a derisive way. During the rehearsing period, the performers had concerned about the scene that the protagonist had to smear her period’s blood over the pagoda and laugh as an act of revenge for being prohibited from running in the temple area and hit by her father. Finally, the performer denied performing this scene since ‘the Buddhism has been highly respected by Lanna women. The surrounding area of the pagoda is regarding as the holy areas, even the pagoda’s shadow on the ground is not allowed to step on’. Therefore, this scene has to be softened by changing from spreading blood to mucus instead. Moreover, abstract image is used to tell about abortion instead of using the dialogue. These are the scenes that the performers has valued and considered as the sensitive issues for the community. This way of rehearsing and creating a script requires some time to develop and adjust the scripts with the performers. The protagonist is in fifty, not the young girl who follows the desire without consideration so what she has decided means something to her life and involved with her background, social, time, and context. Sometimes, the performer, especially the senior performer, has been deeply touched by actions of the protagonist like doing the abortion. In creating a story, it must be based on the process of changing and learning from the artist. The role of the researcher is to

make the character to be realistic as it could be.

Working with master of Pleng Saw is challenging for the researcher as how to make this folk artist narrate the picture of the fifty-year-old character and story of her childhood while being realistic and believable. In the beginning of the rehearsal, the performer was stressed and worried and performed an unrelaxed acting. The acting was gradually better since the performer was taught to be relaxed by comparing the dialogue with singing; we have to know meanings and goals of singing. Moreover, getting involved with some objects that related to collective memories are selected as a tool to help the performer to narrate the play. For example, the performer was using a loom while singing lullaby in order to bring back her childhood or looking at photos of her couple can arouse a picture about her first love. This method could help the actress discovers herself and relationship between mind, body and thought. Though the performer does not get used to the way of getting to know the character deeply, following the Western style, learning and knowing the


character is important for the performer. Knowing the character is a means to prepare the performer to stay focusing on the character, to learn how to control the body and emotions and how to express the feelings of the character. Comparing between the performer’s life and the protagonist’s life could generate a deep understanding about the play to the performer. This could keep the performer not imagining the image of the protagonist and the play, and not being into any touching story.

Music and the folk songs, which sung and played in the different way from the conventional pattern, have been applied to this play. Role of music is to represent the play including representing the situation, character’s thoughts, environment and story. Music and singing are developed along with the rehearsal as the musician and the performer have to understand techniques to adjust and prepare themselves to interact and convey the same message through the performance. A few local music instruments are played to create the Lanna environment and let the thoughts of the protagonist to be easily

heard. The researcher takes times with music in order to make it most suitable with the performance. On one hand, the performer sometimes stays in the silence or raises her voice with no lyrics which reflecting the frustration, indecisive and bitterness of the protagonist. Moreover, the performer has to perform two characters and take part in the process of creating the songs that would be sung in a scene of singing battle between two women holding different point of view and actions, the protagonist herself and another Lanna woman. Contents of the songs aim to criticize the idea of being a virgin and believing in monogamy of Lanna women, characters of Lanna folk literature are also referred to in this argument. Furthermore, the performer is free to use the spaces on the stage to create a balance between the performance and spaces, aiming to make the audiences get involve the performance easily. The performer was trained about using the spaces to convey message, to create a realistic and believable picture of places in the protagonist’s memory such as home, workplace, and Buddhist festival, and to lead the audiences’ attraction to the play. The researcher tries to build up the confidence of the performer and emphasize on the power and being prepared when going on the stage.


Conclusion This play represents the Lanna folk songs in a different style from what most audiences get used to, telling moral lessons through tales or fables. However, the audiences would enjoy discovering the story of female Pleng Saw master and listening to her viewpoints through those songs. The picture of one woman growing up in the society that valued the qualities of being a ‘good woman’, ‘good mother’ and ‘good wife’, is displayed through the songs. Most women work her best to meet those qualities though they have to live with other’s expectations and be restricted about her freedom of living. These issues exist but are neglected and taken for granted. So, the researcher raised up the question toward the award of ‘Mother of the Year’ which is the social value in judging whether this person is suitable for being a role model of the women or not. In this play, the audiences would be allowed to see the protagonist’s life, listen to her thoughts, share common experiences, respect other’s dignity and discover the proper ‘space’ and ‘choice’ with the character. This contemporary Lanna play might portrait a picture of our life, and makes us realize about our passion, our dream and our desire. After this research project finished and publicized, it is found that to present the contemporary dramatic play by means of

telling the autobiography and using collective data to construct the new play is the method to understand and learn about folk wisdom in order to create scripts in a manner of autobiography reflecting the social values, norms and traditions. In order to make the scripts constructed from the conventional knowledge, local Lanna performance and folk Pleng Saw songs bounded together to be accessible and able to communicate to the audiences, the researcher has found the strategies as following; - Questioning, folk Lanna wisdom, singing – to communicate with the society in the present time - Converting autobiographies of the four masters to become a fiction with the protagonist allowing the audiences to relate their stories to the play - Scripts which integrated western play with local Pleng Saw occurring from the collaboration between the researcher, playwright and Lanna artists Gathering thoughts and developing the work with various groups of expertise is the means of working that make this play become a hybrid; the scripts have been applied with western knowledge –dialogue, folk Lanna songs and multimedia. The structure of the scripts is adaptable in order to suit the performer. Some events of the play which related to the performer can create sympathy of the performer toward the character and lead the performer to question and critique on the character’s decisions. This makes the performer focus on the decisions instead of goal and super objective of the protagonist. So, in order to create a realistic and reliable play and boost up the potential of the performer to perform and sing in the most suitable way, interchange of knowledge with the artist is crucial.


Normally, the Lanna folk songs function as a means to teach moral lessons and the Buddhist wisdom at the ceremonies or festival. In contrast, the Pleng Saw songs used in this play were composed with the functions of 1) representing the character’s thoughts 2) being a circumstance 3) narrating a story. Positioning the roles of the songs could help the performer understand objectives and needs of singing each song for each event. Though the performer, the researcher and the musician did not get used to work with this style, it was an effective way to organize ideas, solving the problems occurring along the way of developing the story and figuring out strategies to bind the new and the former knowledge together and coming out as a proper script for the performance. Theories of interpretation are also implemented to analyze the needs of the character and make the character become realistic. Sasiwipa Richardson, as a result, becomes the character that closes to a real person in this present time. From the researcher’s viewpoint, the term ‘contemporary’ does not only refer to western style performance like ballet or dialogue play, but it also means interpretation with different methods. For example, poem or autobiography is utilized as a tool to deliver a feeling and thought of the Lanna artist and to generate the understanding of the audiences about the role and functions of Lanna women.

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Polly Irvin. (2003). Directing for the stage. Switzerland :Rotovision Book.

Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson. (2010). Reading autobiography : a guide for interpreting life narratives. Minneapolis, MN : University of Minnesota Press.

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