“Monrak Transistor” A play by Teeraphan Ngowjeenanan
18-21, 25-28 August, 1-4 September 2022
Studio, 4th floor, Bangkok Art and Culture Centre
 
“Monrak Transistor”, a play is based on a book by the late writer and activist, “Wat Wanlayangkoon”. The play will come with a colourful production design of a rural Thailand amid a fantasy dream of capitalism, accompanied by live music in the stye of country music throughout the show. 
 
The play tells the rise and fall of “Pan”, a young man with a great voice from Baan Bang Nam Lai village. Pan works at a cucumber farm and is newly married to “Sadaw". Their lives change when they own a transistor radio. The radio does not only to broadcast news from the capital to rural area but it also brings hope which turns into a dream for Pan. His dream leads him into a new world with many incidents to go through. At the end of the day, is this transistor radio a door to his dream of a lure of capitalism?
 
“Monrak Transistor” was adapted into a film in 2001. The film was both commercially and critically success. This year, it will be retold again as a play with support from BACC Performative Art Project # 11. The play is directed by Teeraphan Ngowjeenanan, the director of a documentary “Far from Home” which won Best Documentary from Thai Film Archive and Best Short Documentary from Bangkok Critics Assembly. The cast includes Nattapong Rattanameathanont, an actor and singer under a moniker, “imnutt” and Prim Atchareeya Potipipittanakorn, who rose to fame from a film, “Pro May”.
 
The team behind the show consists of Sutthisipp Thitithanapan, a contemporary country musician of the famous song “Five Minutes to Nirvana” who serves as the play’s music composer. For this play, Sutthisipp works closely with another renowned musician and composer, Gandhi Wasuwitchayagit with support from Silpathorn Award-winner Pradit Prasartthong who is the show’s music advisor. The stage designer is Pornpan Arayaveerasid from DuckUnit, the lighting designer of Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s “Fever Room”. 
 
The play is the latest adaptation of the book from a writer who is celebrated for his tales of small people and their fights against the injustice. “Monrak Transistor” tells a story where real life and dreams are forever paralleled and can never be converged. To see the truth of capitalism where it sells dreams to lower-class people in order to suppress and greedily steal resources from them, leads to a question of how the inequality described in a book written 40 years ago still clearly reflects today’s reality and how can we see any other social dimensions when the story is retold again as a play.
 
“Monrak Transistor” A play by Teeraphan Ngowjeenanan

BACC Performative Art Project # 11 by Bangkok Art and Culture Centre
18, 19, 21, 25, 26, 28 August, 1-4 September 2022 at 19.00 hrs.
20, 27 August 2022 at 17.00 hrs. with post-show talk
Studio, 4th, Bangkok Art and Culture Centre

Tickets price 850 THB (special promotions available) 
Tickets available at https://bit.ly/3z0ISko

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