Reading
Some time ago I came across a young Thai woman reading Sang Thong in a lovely singing voice. No one else was in the room. Her reading was in the thamnawng style, which children learn early in their school years as they begin to study poetry, giving distinctive rhythm and melody to different types of Thai poetry. Shyly the young Thai woman, who had been brought up in the countryside, ventured that she had been considered a good reader when she was a child. Having spent many hours watching lakhon, she had acquired its thamnawng style.
Rama II and his poets wrote Sang Thong to be sung aloud. They used a form called klon bot lakhon, in which the syllables in a line vary between six and nine. In recent years, klon bot lakhon, like other forms of poetry, has been written in two double columns. Thus what Westerners would consider a "line" begins in the left column; the next line begins on the same level in the right column. The klon hot lakhon form uses rhymes, sometimes occurring between ends of lines, but more frequently between the end of a line in one column and the middle of a line in the other column.
Alliteration and assonance, valued in Thai daily speech, are used often in klon hot lakhon, as in other forms of poetry in Thailand.
THE LIVING TRADITION IN THAILAND
Although "The Birth of Prince Sang," the first act of The Golden Prince of the Conch Shell, is no longer presented on stages in Thailand, other episodes of Sang Thong are currently produced at the National Theater, satirized by university students, and played zestfully-following the story, if not the text—at the shrine of Bangkok's guardian spirit and at town temple-fairs. All nine episodes have recently been published as a "cremation volume" honoring a respected official. City and village children become acquainted with the first act early in their schooling and with other acts in later years, as they continue their studies.
The National Theater
Sang Thong as part of the "great" tradition might have been lost when the end of the absolute monarchy in Thailand (1932) made extensive royal patronage of dancers and musicians no longer possible. However, with slow, painful efforts the National Theater was formed. So popular has Sang Thong been that in 1954 a version combining two episodes, "The Marriage of the King's Daughters" (Acts Five and Six) and "Hunting and Fishing" (Act Seven), ran through 127 performances. In 1960 one of the later acts of Sang Thong, "The Polo Match," was given. All of these productions used very elaborate scenery, unlike the lakhon nok staging by the country folk or by the court of Rama II.
Honoring the 200th anniversary (1968) of the birth of Rama II, "The Marriage of the King's Daughters" and "Hunting and Fishing" were presented in the open-air theater surrounded by the brilliantly colored roofs of the National Museum. Young and old crowded to the simple stage, children so close that they could almost touch the actors and actresses. No scenery or props were used except the traditional couch for Thai dance-drama. The narrator, chorus, actors, and actresses followed exactly the Rama II text.
University Satire
Also honoring the anniversary of Rama II, Thammasat University students presented a version of Sang Thong, "The Mother-in-Law," based on the episode in which Queen Months tries to persuade Prince Sang (disguised as a Negrito) to compete with Indra. Written by the rapier-like pen of author and journalist M. R. Kukrit Pramoj, "The Mother-in-Law" was acted with cutting satire on current figures, which M. R. Kukrit feels was part of the earliest lakhon nok style of the country people.
Shrine Offerings
Hidden behind encroaching modern buildings in the heart of Bangkok is a small shrine to its guardian spirit, the chao phaw lak mueang. Since widely known plays as well as new ones are given here continually, an episode from Sang Thong is frequently presented.
On weekends the little enclosure around the pole representing the spirit is so crowded that one can hardly move toward the tables covered with eggs, meat, steamed rice cakes, and other foods, or toward the stage where gaily dressed men and women dance, sing, and speak in the likay style. Performers of likay, a popular dramatic form developed in the 20th century, use some of the lakhon dance motions, but less artfully than do performers of lakhon nok or lakhon nai. Originally likay performers were often taught by court dancers, but this is no longer true. The likay style is freer than that of either lakhon nok or lakhon nai, and permits more ad-libbing; there is more speaking and less singing, fewer musical instruments are used (the musicians are limited to percussion instruments only), and certain sounds and intonations distinguish likay diction. Since common people find likay great fun, they feel it is an appropriate style in which to play an episode of the Sang Thong story for the spirit they wish to please.
According to the classical dancer Malulee Pinsuvana, a poor woman with some dramatic skill might go to a person who wants to repay the spirit for his good fortune. When she asks if she can play some part in return for a small amount of money, he may ask if she can play one of the characters in the story of Sang Thong, Invariably the answer will be, "I can." The date will be set; with little practice of dance steps or lines, she will play, not according to any text but from memory of the story, using some of the lines she may have heard from the Rama II version.
Although educated Thais say there is no art in likay at the shrine, their children, as well as those of common people, can be overheard urging their nurses or their parents to let them stay to the end of a performance. And so the story, though it may be presented gracelessly, becomes part of the children's lives.
Rural Performances
Ten or twenty years ago the playing of Sang Thong by a group of traveling performers, in either lakhon nok or likay style, was a common occurrence in towns and rice villages. Now it seems to be far rarer. But performances much like those at the shrine of the guardian spirit in Bangkok are still given at temple fairs in Nakhon Pathom, a provincial town.
Villagers in Sagatiam, west of Bangkok, tell of performances of Sang Thong given until about ten years ago. The head-teacher of the school taught village people the parts, and they performed in the surrounding area for various festivals or for people wishing to make repayment to the spirits for some good fortune. It is difficult to ascertain the extent to which such players followed a text or merely followed the general lines of the story, making up their words and inventing their dance movements as they went along. Today, the eyes of old and middle-aged villagers glisten as they talk of performances of Sang Thong. Mrs. Bunsong Jai-ngam, for example, daughter of a woman who often acted with the head-teacher's group, had been talking to us of past performances as she squatted on the floor washing dishes. Suddenly she put down her dishcloth, stood up, and began to dance. The words she sang, as she recalled the old performance, were exactly those of Rama II's version. The part she spontaneously danced and sang was from Act Two, in which the little Prince Sang, eager to sec the toy promised by a soldier sent to kill him, stretches out his hand and is caught. Since other village people have spontaneously related poignant portions of the drama, I am inclined to think that these especially were carried, word for word, from the "great" tradition of the courtly version to the "little" tradition of country people.
Memorial Volumes
At the cremation ceremony of a respected Thai, the family presents guests with a volume, sometimes having special meaning to the deceased or one of his relatives, sometimes chosen by the National Library as having general worth. In 1961 a special printing of the Rama II version of Sang Thong was done for the cremation of Police Lieutenant-Colonel Kowit Praphrupan. In answer to my letter asking why Sang Thong had been chosen, his older brother responded, with elegant simplicity, "It is a treasure of the Thai people."
School Programs
A piece of literature, particularly a long one, is seldom taught all at one time in Thai schools. Instead, an episode appropriate to the students' understanding is given them to read. Although many Thai students go far enough to study "The Choice of Husbands," "The Winning of Rochana," and "Hunting and Fishing," which are considered finer Thai poetry, fourth-graders already know the play from their study of "The Birth of Prince Sang."
Jaroen