Nang Yai
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Nang yai ( Thai หนังใหญ่ ), also nang luang , formerly nang , is a genre of drama with large picture panels made of parchment , which is one of the shadow plays and is cultivated in the center of Thailand around the capital Bangkok . The immobile figure plates are each carried by one actor and moved by dancing to the music. In the more common nocturnal form, the actual nang yai , players dance in front of and behind a backlit screen. In the rarer nang rabam , the players act exclusively in front of the screen from afternoon to evening. Both performance practices of courtly tradition differ from the usual shadow play with smaller figures, of which only the shadows can be seen. This nang talung , played more often in Thailand, is a more recent development of popular entertainment and comes from the south of the country. In contrast to the other shadow games in Southeast Asia, the nang yai has no ritual meaning, but serves purely for entertainment. Episodes from the Ramakian are usually staged .
Origin and Distribution
The Thai drama with image plates used to be called just nang (“skin”, “parchment”, “leather”). The Thai adjectives yai (“big”) or luang (“royal”) have been supplemented with smaller figures, nang talung (named after the region of origin Phatthalung ) since the second half of the 19th century to distinguish them from the southern Thai shadow play . The daylight performance is called nang rabam (from rabam, "to dance"), nang ram (" pantomime ") or nang sound wan ( nang glangwan , "daylight skin"). During the reign of King Rama III. (r. 1824-1851) the southern Thai shadow play was called nang kaek and was believed to come from Malaysia ( kaek are Asian non- Thais , mostly Muslims). According to one report, nang talung was brought to Bangkok to be shown to King Chulalongkorn (Rama V, r. 1868–1910). Before that, nang talung had also been performed in central Thailand. Today nang talung focuses on the south and regularly enriches village festivals there. There is also a little-known variant of nang talung in the vicinity of Ubon Ratchathani in the northeast, which is called nang pramo thai ( nang bra mo thai ). In Malaysia , the same paddle game performed by Thais is called wayang kulit gedek and should not be confused with wayang kulit Siam , which despite its name is a Malay game form. In Cambodia , as in Thailand, a distinction is made between a game with large figures, sbek thom (also nang sbek ), and a game with small figures, similar to nang talung , sbek touch (also nang trolung ). In Cambodia, too, the large figures represent the older form and have probably existed since the Khmer rule of Angkor (early 9th to early 15th century).
The shadow play in Thailand could have come from China, via Cambodia from India or via Java and the Malay Peninsula from India. There is broad consensus about an ultimately Indian origin. Against a presumed origin from China in connection with the Chinese sea trade in the 13th / 14th Century with Thailand, Malaysia and Java speaks that at least in Java at this time there were already shadow plays and that no historical sources for such a spread have come down to us. In addition, the Thai immigrated from the south of China, while the old center of Chinese shadow play was in the central north of China in the provinces of Hubei , Shaanxi and around Beijing . In the west of China, to Sichuan , the shadow play first made its way from the north via Shaanxi around 1740. The similarity between the characters of the Western Chinese and Thai shadow play is explained by the manufacturing methods. In both traditions, the fine openings are knocked out of thick cowhide with punching dies . Otherwise, there is nothing in common between the movable Chinese figures in terms of shape and style of play with those of the nang yai . There is just as little concrete evidence of a connection between the Chinese shadow play and Java as there is of a Chinese influence in the 13th / 14th centuries. Century over Central Asia to the Karagöz in Anatolia, as Rainald Simon (1997) assumes, especially since nothing of the Turkish Karagöz has survived before the 16th century and this probably emerged from the Arab shadow play around that time . It is not known whether there were performances of Chinese shadow plays in Thailand in earlier centuries. In contrast, Chinese operas have been shown in Thailand since the Ayutthaya period (1351–1767) until today . Most people believe that the Chinese shadow play forms its own line of tradition compared to the large group of shadow plays found in India and Southeast Asia. Chinese figures generally have many moving parts and can be moved extremely quickly using almost horizontally guided holding rods. The Indian-Southeast Asian figures are guided on holding rods almost vertically or diagonally from below. They have fewer moving parts or consist of rigid panels, which results in slower game play.
Old Indian Sanskrit epics allow the conclusion that there could have been a kind of shadow play in India around the turn of the century. ML Varadpande interprets from the Mahabharata for India an early development from masked human actors in magical rituals to the use of dolls that are held in front of the head with one hand instead of a mask. The large Thai skin figures can be thought of as hand-held masks or dolls.
In the first centuries AD, Indian traders and settlers came to the Southeast Asian island world, first to Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula. By the 6th century, Indian culture, which includes the teachings of Buddhism and Hinduism , had developed widely. Since the Indonesian shadow play wayang kulit only occurs in areas where Hinduism was widespread in the course of history or is widespread in Bali to this day and the contents of the older shadow play tradition wayang kulit purwa are adaptations of the great Indian epics, its origin is considered to be certain . Written evidence of wayang kulit has existed since the beginning of the 11th century. There are numerous forms of shadow play in India, the figures of which are very different from one another. Medium-sized, immobile figures made of thick, opaque animal skin appear in the Tholpavakuthu of Kerala and in the Ravanacharya of Odisha , while the Chamadyache bahulya of Maharashtra and the Tholu bommalata of Andhra Pradesh have small, semi-translucent figures, and the translucent and movable figures reach life size. The Javanese shadow play tradition also includes animistic, old Javanese influences.
In addition to the already mentioned two shadow play traditions wayang gedek and wayang Siam, there is also the rare wayang Jawa on the Malay Peninsula, which corresponds to the courtly wayang kulit purwa in Java. Jean Boisselier (1976) considers the shadow play to spread from the south Indian coast to Sumatra in the 8th century and at the same time, i.e. at the beginning of the Srivijaya Empire, to the Malay Peninsula as likely. From there it was introduced into the Sukhothai Empire in the 13th century , when the Buddhist teaching ( Theravada ) that was specific to Thailand began to develop . The spread of an Indian shadow play tradition does not explain the special performance practice of the nang yai with figures carried in front of the screen. Presumably, this style of play goes back to a type of storytelling in which a narrator shows the plot illustrating pictures, as is the case with the wayang beber on Java. Similar picture scroll narratives are known from India to this day, for example together with the shadow play Chamadyache bahulya , among the Bhopas in Rajasthan (fabric picture roll phad ) and among the Patuas in Bengal (paper picture roll pat ).
The presentation of shadow play figures in front of the screen is rare, but occasionally occurs in religious rituals. In the religious Indian shadow play Tholpavakuthu , a Ganesha figure is placed in front of the canvas during the sacrifice. In Bali and Java, shadow play figures are shown by day and without a screen by the dalang (demonstrator), who assumes the function of a priest, during incantation rituals (in Java: ngruwat- evocation). In this wayang lemah (“ wayang by day, daylight”) the figures are leaned next to the central opening figure gunungan on a horizontally stretched string. Independently of this, male viewers on Java can see the performance from the side of the dalang , i.e. with a view of the characters.
An Indian influence on the nang yai over the area of what is now Cambodia is likely because of the strong resemblance to the large figures and the way in which the Cambodian sbek thom played . The first Indianized country in Southeast Asia was Funan , which emerged in the 1st century AD , from which the kingdom of Chenla and from it the kingdom of the Khmer emerged in the 6th century . According to a legendary story, an Indian Brahmin married a Queen of Funan in the 1st century and this is how the first Hindu empire in Southeast Asia came into being. In addition to the shadow play, other areas of Indian and Javanese culture also reached Siam via the adjacent Khmer Empire to the southeast . The courtly Thai orchestra pi phat goes back to the Cambodian pin peat , which dates back to the pre-Angkor period , and the Thai mahori corresponds to the Cambodian ensemble type mohori , which spread during the Ayutthaya period. In the Cambodian sbek thom , more precisely robam nang sbek thom ("dance of the big skin figures"), the actors hold heavy figure plates in their hands and move behind the screen. The performances of the sbek thom are accompanied by several magical rituals that must be strictly observed. In the past, they were very likely part of the ceremonial and entertainment at the royal court. Although dance scenes and musical instruments are depicted several times at medieval Cambodian temples, there are no images of the shadow play. This does not rule out the old age of the sbek thom , because it is quite possible that images were not shown for fear of the magical effect of the shadow .
The contents of the nang yai come exclusively from the Ramakian , the Thai variant of the ancient Indian epic Ramayana written by Valmiki and were disseminated with Hinduism. The Ramakian was fixed in writing in Thailand in the 18th century, the most famous version was created in 1798 under the direction of King Rama I. The content of the shadow plays was also limited to regional rewriting of the Ramayana stories, among others at Tholpavakuthu in Kerala, at wayang Siam in Malaysia ( Hikayat Seri Rama, "Story of Shri Rama") and at the sbek thom in Cambodia. The regional adaptations and the distribution channels of the stories about the mythical hero Rama in Southeast Asia are a matter for discussion among experts.
History of the Nang Yai
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Siamese history begins with the independence of the Sukhothai Kingdom in 1238. The Thai of the subsequent Ayutthaya Empire subjugated the remains of the former Khmer Empire at the beginning of the 15th century, which led to an intensive cultural exchange between the two peoples. The oldest source in Thai script that mentions Thai music but not dramatic productions is the stone inscription by King Ramkhamhaeng (ruled 1279–1298), dated 1292 . For the first time nang yai can be read in the Ayutthaya period in the Kot Monthianban ("Palace Law") during the reign of King Boromatrailokanath (ruled 1448–1488). The Kot Monthianban was written around 1450, 1458 or 1468, according to different information, it contains rules and legal provisions for the king (regulation of succession) and his court employees and defines the execution of the ceremonies in the twelve-month annual calendar. The “Palace Law” is part of the Kotmay Tra sam Duang (“Laws of the Three Seals”) collection of laws and was destroyed when Ayutthaya was destroyed in 1767 by the Burmese. Rama I (r. 1782–1809) had new manuscripts of the legal texts reconstructed from copies from other cities , in which certain changes cannot be ruled out.
Nang yai performances belonged to the state mahorasop events, which in the Ayutthaya period often represented 15-day court festivals and ceremonies for the entertainment of the people, and were, among other things, obligatory at the Hindu Jongprieng lantern festival in honor of the divine trinity Brahma , Vishnu and Shiva , which today became the Loi Krathong Festival of Lights , which takes place in November, also at annual temple festivals, the state consecration of war elephants , the extraordinary consecration of a white elephant and the burial of the king. In a private setting, a nang troop was called in at a funeral or simply for entertainment. The shadow play must have been very popular under King Narai (reigned 1656–1688), because the king gave his court poets two plays that they were supposed to stage for nang and the texts of which have been preserved. The pieces are called Samutthrakhot khamchan (also Samudakos ), a Buddhist Jataka tale about Prince Samutthrakhot, begun by Phra Maha Rajagru and continued by the king himself, and Anirut khamchan ("The Story of Anirut") by the poet Sriprat . Chan (from Sanskrit chanda ) is one of five verse forms developed in the Ayutthaya period with a strictly defined number of syllables. The court brahmin Phra Simahosot, who is responsible for the ceremonies, describes what nang performances looked like at the court of King Narai in his work Kap ho khlong (the title denotes a special form of verse).
In Bunnowat khamchan , supposedly written between 1751 and 1758, the author Phra Mahanak, a monk of Wat Tha Sai in Ayutthaya, describes a pilgrimage to Wat Phra Phutthabat in the province of Saraburi , which took place almost annually under the leadership of King Borommakot (r. 1733–1758 ) took place to worship a footprint of Buddha there. A nang was shown during the day together with acrobatic tricks and similar forms of entertainment and the same at night when fireworks were presented for the pilgrims.
After Ayuttaya was destroyed, Taksin founded a new capital in Thonburi in 1767 . He was followed in 1782 with Rama I, the first ruler of the Chakri dynasty , who moved his capital to Bangkok on the east side of the Mae Nam Chao Phraya . The re-establishment should be a direct successor of Ayutthya, which is why the ancient arts including the nang were still cultivated. The Thai epic Inau goes back to the Indonesian tales about Prince Panji, which are dogged in the Javanese shadow play wayang kulit and staged in other wayang game forms. The hero Panji became the title character Inau. The work, commissioned by Ramas II (reigned 1809–1824), contains an episode in which Inau has a nang performed in order to recognize his disguised lover among the audience. The inau was written for the courtly dance drama lakhon nai and the nang it contains is a game within a game. In 1784 Rama I had a "Great Swing" ( Sao Ching Cha ) built, with which the swing ceremony was carried out every year on the occasion of the Brahmin New Year celebration. In order to make the festival even more popular with the people, Rama IV (r. 1851–1868) also introduced the shadow play.
From the 19th century, some depictions of nang have been preserved on the inner walls of Buddhist wats , for example on the ubosot in Wat Phra Kaeo, which was completed in 1785 . The wall paintings for the Ramakian were applied in Wat Phra Kheo between 1824 and 1851, have been restored several times since then and completely painted over before 1932, when the 150th anniversary of the city of Bangkok took place. Thus the earliest illustrations from a time when the popularity of the nang yai had already passed its peak. The first description of the nang yai was published in 1920. It was written under the title Tamra len nang nai ngan mahorasop ("Treatise on skin figure performances at festivities") by Prince Sathitthamrongsawat in the second half of the 19th century.
Prince Dhaninivat (1948) explains the decline of nang yai end of the 19th century with the increasing popularization of other art forms, especially of the opposite the nang younger dance theater khon , wherein the masked dancer in front of a screen or a scenery in the background, the same stories from the Ramakian , but embody with livelier movements. The transition was thus formed by a form of nang that was performed in front of a screen, in which the main roles were played by mask dancers and the supporting roles by actors with skin figures.
Political decisions contributed to its almost complete disappearance at the beginning of the 20th century. First, shortly after 1900, King Chulalongkorn banned entertainment performances at funerals. These represented the main source of income for the shadow play ensembles. Another source of income was lost with the abolition of the absolute monarchy in the coup d'état in 1932 , when the support of the powerless noble patrons ceased. With the general westernization the interest of the population in the courtly old culture waned. Nang yai picture panels are now on display in the Bangkok National Museum and in the wats of some cities in the provinces. These include Wat Khanon in Amphoe Photharam ( Ratchaburi Province ), Wat Sawang Arom in Sing Buri Province and Wat Bandon in Rayong Province . Only in these three locations are ensembles active that give nang yai performances at temple festivals and by appointment .
Since the 1980s, nang yai performances have gained broader audiences through television broadcasts, and some efforts have been made to revive the tradition. Sun Tawalwongsri developed a new piece for nang yai based on Ramakian , which was performed by the Wat Bandon ensemble as Thailand's contribution to the international puppet theater festival in Lund (Sweden) in 2008 . The three named Wats are the only museums with a complete set of figures (250 to 323 figures from the 19th century); a fourth collection with around 200 figures is in the German Leather Museum in Offenbach.
Performance practice
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The nang yai , along with the mask dance khon, is one of the courtly theater forms that are only performed by men. The other courtly genre reserved for women is lakhon nai (for example, "theater of women within the palace"), which was previously played by the concubines in the king's harem ( lakhon nok were theater plays outside the palace). Great performances of nang yai, khon and lakhon nai were once the king's privilege. In contrast to its closest relative, the Cambodian sbek thom , and the other Southeast Asian shadow games with smaller figures, the nang yai is intended purely for entertainment. This does not preclude the nang yai from being performed at transitional ceremonies (funerals, weddings) and during the rocking ceremony, which was an invitation to Shiva to visit the earth. The nang yai was usually integrated with other forms of entertainment on ceremonial occasions. A memory of an originally ritual function remained alive in the invocation texts contained in shadow play manuscripts. The mention of a dance with horses, which is unknown in Thailand, in an invocation text, refers to the Malaysian-Indonesian area, where obsession dances with hobby horses ( kuda lumping ) are performed. The leader of these rituals is in the role of the dalang in the shadow play. Theodore Pigeaud (1938) mentions dances with hobby horses at transitional ceremonies on Java and in Thailand at the beginning of the 20th century, during which shadow plays were shown. The invocations at the beginning of a performance are not only pleas for blessings to the Hindu gods, Buddha and nature spirits, they also contain a summary of the content of the following scenes and a review of the performances shown in the afternoon.
Figure plates
The figure plates held on two sticks are 0.6–1.5 meters wide and 1–2 meters high and weigh 10 kilograms or more. They are preferably made from untanned cowhide or otherwise from the thicker skin of a water buffalo . After the skins have been freed of meat residues, depilated and stained with a lime solution, they are stretched out to dry in the sun. In order to achieve the degree of transparency desired for parchment , the skins are scraped to the appropriate thickness. A black paint made from coconut ash suspended in rice water is applied to cover both sides. The dried soot layer is polished to a silk gloss with the leaves of the gac fruit ( Momordica cochinchinensis ). The carrier material is now ready for the design. The motif drawn with chalk or felt pen and the outline are punched out.
There are panels that contain a figure, several figures or a landscape scene. Often the upper body of the figures is shown frontally and the face in profile or half profile. Individual figures are shown in an elegant movement and surrounded by varied openwork, floral ornaments. According to their use, three types of figure plates are distinguished:
Most of the figure plates belong to the usual performance in the evening, the actual nang or nang yai , also nang sound khuen ( nang glangkhün , “at night skin”). The marked openings are punched out with round and straight chisels ( sio ) and various punches ( muk or tuttu ). Areas intended for the application of paint are freed from the black layer of soot, because the colored areas should glow and be translucent. The impression of white is created by uncolored skin. If a face is to shine even whiter, the entire face shape is cut out except for the fine lines for the eyes, mouth and nose. Such a face, which is called nang na khwä ("woman with a hollowed face"), has the beautiful Sida (corresponds to the Indian Sita ), the wife of Phra Ram. Green is created by applying a solution of copper sulphate with lemon juice; the bark juice of the small tree Caesalpinia sappan mixed with alum results in a red color . If the applied red paint is rubbed off with lemon juice, it turns yellow. Both sides are painted the same. Gold plates serve as decorations. The picture disks are attached to two parallel wooden sticks or one that diverges slightly downwards, which end with the upper edge of the panel and protrude about 50 centimeters at the bottom.
The figures nang rabam , also nang jap rabam na jo (“dancing skin in front of the screen”) are used for the rarer performances in the afternoon . In contrast to the nang yai panels used at night , these panels have few openings, but the outline corresponds to the realistically drawn figures. The individual figures or, more rarely, groups of figures are painted with colorful patterns and hung with gold plates. The individual figures of the nang rabam are the usual heroes of the Ramakian stories: besides Phra Ram and his wife Sida, among others, the monkey general Hanuman in a standing and flying posture, the striding hermit Khobut (teacher of the demon king Thotsakan) and Ongkhot, a monkey prince in flying and crying posture. Nang rabam scene groups show a battle scene between Phra Lak ( Lakshmana ) and the demon Inthorachit, soldiers from foreign peoples (Malay, South Indian, Chinese, European) who sit on mounts (water buffalo, bull, deer, boar) and simple soldiers of the Monkey army.
The figure plates nang chao ( nang jau , "lords") of the three supreme gods Phra Isuan ( Shiva ), Phra Narai ( Vishnu ) and Phra Phrom ( Brahma ) represent a special feature. They are considered sacred and must be handled accordingly. At the beginning of the performance, the three nang chao plates are placed in front of the screen where they receive offerings. The players only wear the smaller nang chao plates during the invocation before the action of the game. In order to endow them with magical powers, they should be made from the skin of cattle that died in unusual ways. The figure of Brahma, who appears here as a hermit (Rüsi, Rishi ), should be made of bear or tiger skin. Only in the production of these three figures must special regulations be observed and offerings made to the gods and old masters before the work begins. Manufacturers must be dressed in white and cut out and paint the figures within 24 hours. Since the nang chao can still be seen in front of the screen in daylight in the evening, they are brightly painted and decorated with gold plates.
The nang yai picture panels include individual figures, scenes with multiple figures, props and sets. Individual figures can be recognized by their posture. They are surrounded by vegetal or flame-like ornaments ( granok ), which are usually joined by the mythical snake Naga at the bottom . The following types can be distinguished:
- Nang khanejon , a slender, striding figure whose face is shown in profile ( khanejon , "to stride "). Another name of the approximately 1.5 meter high figure is nang dön ("in walking posture").
- Nang fau or nang wai , a figure shown in profile who kneels in front of the king and has folded his hands in front of his chest in a respectful greeting ( wai ) ( fau means audience with the king). The height is about one meter. Some figures carry a sword, the tip of which points downwards at an angle.
- Nang nga , a figure standing with outstretched arms, one leg stretched forward and one leg bent to the side ( nga , “pull apart”, “stretch”). Two related types are the nang gong , who draws a bow ( gong , "to draw ") and the nang phläng , which shoots an arrow ( phläng , "to shoot").
- Nang jam-uad , a joker ( jam-uad , "jester") who appears as a clumsy and somewhat deformed human figure. In contrast to all the other figures, some can move an arm and the lower jaw. Another marginal figure is the monkey soldier nang khen ( khen, "shield").
The scene plates with several figures are larger and reach a height of about two meters. Their outline is usually an upright, rounded rectangle that merges into an approximate semicircle at the top. Often they have a straight edge. They represent a certain scene and have to be replaced as the story progresses.
- Nang jap show a lively battle scene between at least two gods, heroes or animals and are the most frequently used plates because the Ramakian is portrayed as a series of battles ( jap , "to seize")
- Nang müang are image plates with several figures sitting in a room ( müang, "city"). The room is recognizable as a palace hall or a military camp.
- Nang bettalet ("mixed topics") includes all scenic picture plates that do not fall under the first two groups. These include backdrops with landscapes without people, including a plate with fish in a sea that, on the orders of the demon Thotsakan, remove stones that Phra Ram's soldiers threw into the water to build a bridge to the city of Longga (Lanka). Other panels represent a garden with fruit trees or a chariot.
In all traditional Thai theater forms, four characters can be distinguished: the hero ( phra ), the heroine ( nang ), the demon ( yak , Sanskrit yaksha ) and the monkey ( ling or wanon ). The hermit ( rüsi ) and the joker ( tua talok ) are added as marginal figures . The latter occurs between scenes to give the other actors a break.
Phra are all male figures, people and gods. They always wear baggy trousers and either a shirt with long sleeves or, in some cases, show the bare torso. They are distinguished by iconographic details. Kings, princes and gods wear a tapered crown, comparable to a tiara , which is called chada for a man and monggut for a woman . The shape of the chada differs depending on the wearer. Phra Ram wears a chada that is slightly curved backwards , as does the god Indra , while the hermit wears a headscarf at the top of the chada . Subordinate figures wear hats with ear flaps, muak hu gratai ("hat with rabbit ears"). A diadem with earrings protruding towards the back is reserved for ministers ( krabang na , “face frame”). Phra Ram appears black on the figure plates for the nightly performance, other phra figures are red, green-yellow or skin-colored. During the daytime nang rabam performance, Phra Ram is green, the other phra figures are yellow, light red and purple. For some figures their weapon is characteristic, for Phra Ram for example a bow and arrow.
The few female figures ( nang ), which also include female demons, wear a wrap skirt that reaches to the ankles. Their social position is mainly recognizable by their headdress. Princesses, goddesses and other heavenly beings wear the queen's crown ( monggut gasattri ) as headdresses . One of Thotsakan's wives, who is a daughter of the Snake King , wears a corresponding headdress in the shape of a Naga head. Demons in human form can often be recognized by a sharp ratglau ("jewelry around the head of hair").
The demon ( yak ) is dressed similarly to the hero ( phra ), but has a breastplate. For the multitude of demons in Ramakian (over 100) several characteristics are required for individualization. The headdress , which is also called monggut , comes in nine differently named forms. The krabang na is the headdress of the ministers and the female demons that are always depicted as "ugly". A simple soldier among the demons only wore a headscarf. The shape of the mouth and eyes is precisely defined. Typical are large round eyes with eyebrows connected in a line ( ta phlong ) and crocodile eyes ( ta chakhe ), which are narrow with slightly raised eyebrows. Demons also have distinctive canine teeth.
Monkeys ( ling ) are always male. Monkey princes and monkey generals are shown with pants and a naked torso. Monkey foot soldiers have a loincloth wrapped around them. The social position of the monkeys can also be recognized by several types of headdress ( monggut ). There is also a headband ( malay ) with various decorations in three variants. Monkey foot soldiers do not wear headgear. According to the shape of its mouth, Hanuman with its open mouth differs from the monkey Ongkhot with its closed mouth. Hanuman fights with a trident, a sword, or without a weapon. A sword is common to most monkeys. If the magical powers of Hanuman are to be emphasized, he is shown with four arms and several weapons.
Game setup
A common nang yai performance , which was part of a state celebration , used to take place outdoors on the square in front of the palace or on another festival area. The length of the screen is fixed at 16 meters. The height is four to six meters. The middle area of the screen, behind which the figures appear, is eight meters long and consists of a white, translucent fabric. A four-meter-long panel made of thicker fabric is sewn on each side. The umbrella is stretched on posts and between two horizontal pieces of wood at a distance of one meter from the ground. The entire length of fabric is edged with a red and a blue fabric, which serves as mechanical reinforcement and at the same time as a frame for the stage design. The frame can also be painted and, in appropriate scenes, represent the Phra Rams military camp or the fortifications of the city of Longga. Smaller ensembles that roamed between other performance opportunities used eight to nine meters long and almost four meters high screens.
In the past two fires were lit behind the screen as lighting, in which coconut shells - alternatively wood or leaves soaked with resin - were burned and which had to be protected from the wind by a screen. The screen behind the fires, made of fabric or woven mats, also reflected the light and created a separate lounge for the actors. The fires burned in metal bowls on 1–1.5 meter high stands at a certain distance from each other and from the screen. The fires were later replaced by Petromax lamps and electric lightbulbs, with the figures' shadows appearing less vivid without the flickering flames.
music
The accompanying ensemble pi phat the shadow player is part of the courtly tradition. It only plays the compositional genre phleng naphat , which used to consist of purely instrumental pieces of music. The melodies are strictly composed, even if they were only passed down orally until the Second World War, and usually do not allow any changes. From the pool of existing melodies, the ensemble leader selects those that are suitable for the scenes shown. The repertoire and orchestra are the same as in the khon mask game .
The best-known pi phat ensemble type with hard mallets is used, piphat mai khaeng , which of the three sizes in the ensemble is piphat krüang ha . The musical instruments are the melody-leading trough xylophone ranat ek with 21 wooden sound sticks, which belongs to the group of ranat (in Cambodia roneat ); the large circle of gong khong wong yai with 16 hump gongs lying horizontally in a circle around the musician on a resonance box ; the 40 centimeter long double reed instrument (oboe) pi nai with six finger holes, the most famous of the pi instruments; the questionable celled barrel drum taphon with line voltage substantially greater, doubt celled barrel drum klong did whose skin membranes are nailed at the edge and the brass cymbals ching as a clock. The ranat ek conducts the ensemble and the gong circle plays the main melody line. The taphon must pay attention to the rhythmic coordination of the music with the dancers. The pi nai varies the main melody. In the 19th century, a choir was added to the previous instrumental music, which is placed outside the stage with the narrator. In the oboe, from the middle of the 19th century, a distinction was made between pi nai (here nai stands for "inside") for performances within the royal palace and pi nok ( nok , "outside") for performances outside the palace. The ensemble can be enlarged by further of the instruments mentioned. Most essential are two smaller barrel drums klong ting ( glongting ) which has two to three meters long bamboo slit drum Krong ( grong ), and further a pair of cylindrical drums with string tensioning, klong khaek which are additionally beaten at love and battle scenes.
The phleng naphat melodies are grouped thematically according to the scenes that accompany them, for example: fight scenes and chases, magical practices and metamorphoses, expressions of feelings (crying, being happy), everyday activities and general movements along the screen. Anyone who knows the melodies knows which character moves on stage (human hero, demon, animal), how the character moves (walking slowly, running, in flight) and where the journey is going. Each melody has its own dance steps for the individual characters. There are also certain opening melodies. Narrators, musicians and dancers have to coordinate precisely. The music ensemble sits in the middle, a few meters in front of the screen, directly in front of the audience on the ground and looks in the direction of the screen. Only the bamboo slotted drum lies behind the screen on a holder on the floor so that the players can rhythmically emphasize battle scenes.
Course of the performance
In the afternoon
A nang rabam performance that takes place in the afternoon begins without a ceremony. According to the Kot Monthianban (“Palace Law”), the nang rabam was understood as an independent form of entertainment in the middle of the 15th century and only became a prelude to the nang yai in the Bangkok period . In contrast to nang yai , love stories and no fighting occur in nang rabam . These are performed as dances whose style is borrowed from the lakhon dance theater . The beautifully costumed and headscarfed dancers move to the melodies of sung stories. One of these stories ( Mekhala lo Kaeo ) is about Mekhala (also Mani Mekhala), the patron goddess of the sea and thunder goddess popular in Thailand and Cambodia, who appears in a Jataka and attracts the demons Ramasun (Ramasura). Ramasun throws his ax at her because he desires her jewel. The blow with which the ax hits the jewel explains the origin of thunder in Thai mythology.
Invocation ceremony
The nang yai performance, which begins in the evening, is preceded by a fixed religious ceremony. René Nicolas (1927) and Prince Dhaninivat (1954) describe in detail what this looked like in the 19th century. In the afternoon, the image plates are brought into the barrier behind the screen. An ensemble member called khon thot nang (“ nang distributor”) places them in the order of their use and according to characters. When dusk falls, the head of the ensemble places the three nang chao figures in front of the screen: in the middle Phra Phrom (Brahma) as Rüsi (hermit), on the right Phra Isuan (Shiva) and on the left Phra Narai (Vishnu) facing each other . The Rüsi corresponds to one of the Rishis in Indian mythology, including Narada, the inventor of the vina (roughly synonymous with heavenly music). In his capacity, Rüsi is to be equated with the Indian Bharata, the semi-mythical sage and inventor of the drama, which Brahma taught the theatrical art and who passed it on to the people, i.e. the “original teacher” of the nang yai theater performance.
The prelude is an homage to the gods: the ceremony bök na phra or wai khru nang . Musicians, performers, and everyone involved with the performance honors the gods. In the 19th century, offerings to the three figures were betel nuts and leaves, biscuits, a pig's head and six coins attached to candles. The sponsor of the event gives the game master three of the candles as an offering. One of them goes on to the leader of the music ensemble, who lights it and places it on the revered drum taphone . The taphon , which corresponds in its musical meaning to the Javanese kendang , is identified with the wise Narada, the "original teacher" of music. The other two candles are placed in front of the figures of Shiva and Vishnu and lit.
The head of the ensemble or the head of the Wats speaks a formula of worship. The ensemble plays music directed to the gods. Then two actors dance with the characters of Phra Isuan and Phra Narai, while all those involved sing invocation texts to the gods and to the Rüsi, the old master of the nang drama, so that he can bless the following performance. Meanwhile, the figure of the hermit and the two figures of gods are ceremoniously brought behind the stage, then the fire is lit to illuminate the stage.
The invocation song consists of three hymn stanzas. In the first stanza, King Thotsarot of Ayutthaya (in Ramayana King Dasharatha of the Kingdom of Kosala) and Phra Ram are greeted. Shiva and Vishnu are praised and the making of a nang yai figure is described. The second stanza begins with the praise of Rüsi, followed by the praise of Buddha and the Burmese king Anawrahta , who brought Theravada Buddhism to the north of what is now Thailand in the mid-11th century . Those called also include nature spirits and the “original teacher”. The characters of the shadow play and the artistry of their performers are famous. In the third stanza, those involved implore the blessings of the gods for themselves and the audience and instruct the “master of the torch” to light the fire. The invocation ends with a respectful greeting ( wai ). The priestly function of the game captain is expressed in the texts. The leaders of the nang talung , the dalang in Indonesia and, for example, the leaders of the religious shadow play Tholpavakuthu in India also perform such a priestly task .
foreplay
The following prelude, jap ling huakham (“Catching the Monkey at Dusk”), is accompanied by the music ensemble, which plays the drum taphone and a stimulating solo on the pi nai . The episode played here shows a short fight between the good white and the bad black monkeys who live in the forest. The story is told with humor and contains a moral. The black monkey creates disorder, the white one wants to grab it to restore order. After the white monkey has given the black one, a fight begins in which the opponents pounce on each other three times until the white monkey finally wins. The white monkey wants to bring his shackled opponent to the place of execution. On the way they pass a hermit who asks to let the black monkey live. Only after a long discussion does the white monkey agree to do so and the black monkey promises to be good in the future after receiving instruction. Then they say goodbye and part. The scene is made complex and tense with six actors who alternate in front of and behind the screen.
Main game
A nang yai performance, as was common in the 19th century, lasted until around midnight. At least 10, sometimes up to 20 actors are required who are called khon chöt ("lifter"). They “lift” the image plates with both hands on the two rods or, in the case of smaller plates, on one rod with the lower edge at eye level vertically upwards. The pose of the actor's legs corresponds to that of the figure plate he is carrying, and he also turns his face in the same direction as the figure. Player and character form an aesthetic unit that represents a certain character as a whole. The players generally come onto the stage from the right and walk off to the left. On the right is the “good” side in the Indian cultural area, on which the hero and god figures are placed in the shadow play (viewing direction from behind on the screen). First the demon performers step onto the stage, followed by the humans and monkeys, until the two armed forces are gathered face to face: on the right Phra Ram and his people, on the "evil" left side the demons.
In addition to the players and musicians, there are between two and four speakers who share the characters of the Phra Rams party including the helpful monkeys and their opponents on the side of the demons. The speakers ( khonjeraja ) lead the dialogues and appear as external narrators ( khonphak ), who describe the course of the action ( khamphak ). As in the mask drama khon, there is next to the storytelling ( khamphak ) the dialogue ( khamjeraja or ceraca ) in rhythmic prose as a second literary genre.
Part of the narration ( khamphak ) is to describe the course of events and the feelings of the people. The khamphak texts are formally divided into six groups. One of these is phak müang , the introduction to the first scene with which the Phra Rams military camp and the city fortifications of its demonic adversary are described. Phak o is a lament, phak chom dong describes nature and phak banyay describes a specific object or individual action. Every other line of text ends with a blow to the taphon from, the two strokes on the larger drum klong did and follow a certain exclamation all sitting in the background actors.
The dialogue ( khamjeraja ) is an improvisation of the speakers in a certain meter, which must be designed with humor. Dialogues occur as direct speech by the characters and as thoughts and moods made audible by the characters. The tone of voice must be adapted to the characters and change from pleasantly high-sounding for the ladies, to fast and witty for the monkeys, to loud and wild for the demons.
The main game deals with episodes from the Ramakian , in which - modified after the Indian model Ramayana - Phra Ram (the Indian Rama ), a prince from the kingdom of Ayutthaya and an incarnation of Vishnu fights with his monkey army against the adversary Thotsakan (the Indian Ravana ) finally defeated him. The cause of the fight is the kidnapping and capture of Rama's promised wife Sida ( Sita ) by Thotsakan. Sida is a daughter of Thotsakan and his wife Montho, but was abandoned on the water shortly after her birth because, according to a divination, she was supposed to bring bad luck and cause Thotsakan's death. The play ends with the splendidly staged wedding of the hero couple. Until then, many twists and turns of fate, metamorphoses, strategically organized battles and duels with the use of magical weapons have to be survived.
literature
- Jean Boisselier: Painting in Thailand. W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1976, pp. 221-227
- Prince Dhani Nivat: The Shadow-Play as Possible Origin of the Masked Play. In: Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 37 (1), 1948
- Sangsri Götzfried: The Thai shadow theater. Catalog of the collection of the German Leather Museum / German Shoe Museum Offenbach am Main. Offenbach 1991
- Gerd Höpfner: Southeast Asian shadow plays. Masks and figures from Java and Thailand. (Picture books of the Staatliche Museen Berlin - Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, volume 2) Museum für Völkerkunde, Staatliche Museen Berlin - Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin 1967
- Friedrich Seltmann: Comparative components of the shadow play forms of South India, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Bali and Java. In: Tribus. Publications of the Linden Museum, No. 23, Stuttgart 1974, pp. 23-70
- EHS Simmonds: New Evidence on Thai Shadow-Play Invocations. In: Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. University of London, Vol. 24, No. 3, 1961, pp. 542-559
- Sun Tawalwongsri: The Creative Choreography for Nang Yai (Thai traditional shadow puppet theater) Ramakien, Wat Ban Don, Rayong Province . In: Fine Arts International Journal , Vol. 14, No. 2, July – December 2010, pp. 5–14
Individual evidence
- ↑ Michael Smithies, Euayporn Kerdchouay: Nang Talung: The Shadow Theater of Southern Thailand . In: Journal of the Siam Society , 60, 1972, pp. 379-390, here p. 380
- ↑ Terry E. Miller, Jarernchai Chonpairot: Shadow Puppet Theater in Northeast Thailand . In: Theater Journal , Vol. 31, No. 3, October 1979, pp. 293-311
- ↑ Sangsri Götzfried, 1991, p. 11
- ^ Rainald Simon: Chinese shadows. Lamp shadow theater from Sichuan. The Eger Collection. (Exhibition catalog Münchner Stadtmuseum) Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1997, p. 8
- ↑ Sangsri Götzfried, 1991, p. 12
- ↑ ML Varadpande: History of Indian Theater . Abhinav Publications, New Delhi 1987, pp. 62, 66
- ^ Fiorella Rispoli: To the West and India . In: East and West, Vol. 55, No. 1/4, December 2005, pp. 243-264, here p. 258
- ↑ Jean Boisselier, 1976, pp. 222f
- ↑ Friedrich Seltmann, 1974, p. 36
- ^ Fan Pen Chen: Shadow Theaters of the World. In: Asian Folklore Studies, Vol. 62, No. 1, 2003, pp. 25–64, here p. 36
- ^ Jacques Brunet: Nang Sbek, danced shadow theater of Cambodia / Nang Sbek, théâtre d'ombres dansé du Cambodge / Nang Sbek, danced shadow theater from Cambodia. In: The World of Music , Vol. 11, No. 4, 1969, pp. 18-37, here pp. 20f
- ↑ See S. Singaravelu: The Rāma story in the Malay tradition . In: Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 54, No. 2 (240), 1981, pp. 131-147
- ^ Prince Dhani Nivat, 1948, p. 27
- ↑ Sangsri Götzfried, 1991, fn. 27 on p. 75
- ↑ Patricia Herbert, Anthony Crothers Milner: South-East Asia: Languages and Literatures: A Select Guide. University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu 1989, p. 32
- ↑ Jean Boisselier, 1976, p. 227
- ^ Prince Dhani Nivat, 1948, pp. 30f
- ↑ Sun Tawalwongsri, 2010, p 6
- ↑ Sangsri Götzfried, 1991, pp. 13-16
- ↑ Sun Tawalwongsri, 2010, p 7
- ↑ Sukanya Sompiboon: The Reinvention of Thai Traditional-Popular Theater: Contemporary likay practice . (Dissertation) University of Exeter, August 2012, pp. 44, 48
- ↑ EHS Simmonds, 1961, pp. 552, 557
- ↑ Sangsri Götzfried, 1991, pp. 19-24, 60, 62
- ↑ Sangsri Götzfried, 1991, pp. 65-71
- ↑ Sangsri Götzfried, 1991, p. 19; about 14 meters long and four to six meters high: Jean Boisselier, 1976, p. 224
- ↑ Sangsri Götzfried, 1991, p. 19
- ↑ Terry E. Miller: Thailand . In: Terry E. Miller, Sean Williams (Eds.): Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. Volume 4: Southeast Asia. Routledge, London 1998, pp. 251-253
- ^ David Morton: The Traditional Music of Thailand. University of California Press, Berkeley 1976, p. 79
- ↑ Sangsri Götzfried, 1991, p. 29f
- ↑ Sylvain Levy: Manimekhala, a Divinity of the Sea . In: The Indian Historical Quaterly , Vol. 6, No. 4, 1930, pp. 597-614
- ^ René Nicolas: Le Theater d'Ombres au Siam. In: Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 21 (1), 1927, pp. 37-51
- ↑ HH Prince Dhaninivat: The Nang. (Thailand Culture Series, No. 12) Bangkok 1954, 3rd edition 1956, pp. 9-11
- ↑ Friedrich Seltmann, 1974, p. 52
- ↑ Cf. Gretel Schwörer-Kohl: Animistic ideas in Thai art music using examples of drum worship in the Pi Phat orchestra. In: Revista de Musicología, Vol. 16, No. 4, Del XV Congreso de la Sociedad Internacional de Musicología: Culturas Musicales Del Mediterráneo y sus Ramificaciones, Vol. 4, 1993, pp. 1881-1887
- ↑ Friedrich Seltmann, 1974, pp. 53f
- ↑ Sangsri Götzfried, 1991, pp. 35, 37; Sun Tawalwongsri, 2010, p. 10
- ↑ Klaus Rosenberg: The traditional forms of theater in Thailand from the beginnings to the reign of Rama VI. In: Society for Nature and Ethnology, 1970, p. 324
- ↑ Sangsri Götzfried, 1991, pp. 28f