“October 6th is a profound lesson,
Teaching us clearly that...
democracy can only be won by taking up arms”.
Thanaphon Accawatanyu’s new play Wilderness (รักดงดิบ) begins with a revolutionary verse, set to music. The play, divided into two parts, is set in the aftermath of two key events in Thai political history: the 6th October 1976 massacre at Thammasat University, and the student protest movement that began in 2020.
In part one, a group of students join the Communist insurgency after the Thammasat massacre, and escape into the forest. Part two features another group of students, though they’re not explicitly indentified as protesters. (Although one character says that she was destined to be part of a demonstration, as she was “in my Mom’s womb during the Black May uprising”, and her father died during that 1992 protest.)
The second part is much more ambiguous than the first, with numerous scenes that appear to be dreams caused by hallucenogenic sweets eaten by the characters. (According to the recipe they follow, the sweets should “dry in the sun for 112 hours”, and the lèse-majesté law is article 112 of the criminal code.) The dreams involve worshipping gods by chanting tongue-twisters.
As in Wilderness, Pasit Promnampol’s short film Pirab (พีเจ้น) and Sunisa Manning’s novel A Good True Thai both dramatise a student’s decision to join the Communist insurgency. A Good True Thai is particularly similar to Wilderness as, like Thanaphon’s play, it focuses on the romantic relationships between the characters.
Wilderness opened at Bangkok Art and Culture Centre on 12th September, and the final performance will be today. The script for one of Thanaphon’s previous plays, The Disappearance of the Boy on a Sunday Afternoon (การหายตัวไปของเด็กชายในบ่ายวันอาทิตย์), appears in Micro Politics alongside Pradit Prasartthong’s A Nowhere Place (ที่ ไม่มีที่), another play that refers to the 6th October massacre.
Teaching us clearly that...
democracy can only be won by taking up arms”.
Thanaphon Accawatanyu’s new play Wilderness (รักดงดิบ) begins with a revolutionary verse, set to music. The play, divided into two parts, is set in the aftermath of two key events in Thai political history: the 6th October 1976 massacre at Thammasat University, and the student protest movement that began in 2020.
In part one, a group of students join the Communist insurgency after the Thammasat massacre, and escape into the forest. Part two features another group of students, though they’re not explicitly indentified as protesters. (Although one character says that she was destined to be part of a demonstration, as she was “in my Mom’s womb during the Black May uprising”, and her father died during that 1992 protest.)
The second part is much more ambiguous than the first, with numerous scenes that appear to be dreams caused by hallucenogenic sweets eaten by the characters. (According to the recipe they follow, the sweets should “dry in the sun for 112 hours”, and the lèse-majesté law is article 112 of the criminal code.) The dreams involve worshipping gods by chanting tongue-twisters.
As in Wilderness, Pasit Promnampol’s short film Pirab (พีเจ้น) and Sunisa Manning’s novel A Good True Thai both dramatise a student’s decision to join the Communist insurgency. A Good True Thai is particularly similar to Wilderness as, like Thanaphon’s play, it focuses on the romantic relationships between the characters.
Wilderness opened at Bangkok Art and Culture Centre on 12th September, and the final performance will be today. The script for one of Thanaphon’s previous plays, The Disappearance of the Boy on a Sunday Afternoon (การหายตัวไปของเด็กชายในบ่ายวันอาทิตย์), appears in Micro Politics alongside Pradit Prasartthong’s A Nowhere Place (ที่ ไม่มีที่), another play that refers to the 6th October massacre.
