Cooking with comedy

Thanks to BEC-Tero Entertainment, Bangkok audiences now have a chance to see "Nanta", the South Korean physical comedy that struck stardom at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival alongside Japan's "Shut up, Play!"

With little or no spoken language, both of these productions - "Shut up" was part of last month's Singapore Arts Festival - make full use of sound from other sources, along with slapstick, vivid characters, straightforward storytelling and audience participation.

"Nanta" blends traditional samulnori music - literally "playing with four instruments" - into a simple story of four chefs preparing a wedding banquet. They create pulsating sounds and exciting visuals with whatever is at hand in the kitchen, including a quacking duck.

Two audience members are invited onstage to taste their hot soup, another to help pull the head chef out of a garbage bin, and four more to assist in making mandu dumplings.

The audience participation ensures that every performance is different, and that's fun for both the performers and the viewers.

In the final analysis, the performance is not stunningly innovative, but the way the scenes are tied together with a simple theme makes them unique.

Viewers are amazed at how the stars can act, dance, create sounds and music and basically keep everyone fully entertained for more than an hour.

It's noteworthy that, although sound and music are so crucial to the show, few of the performers are trained musicians.

The venue is, of course, central to the enjoyment of a great performance. Seeing a show in the wrong place can greatly affect your opinion.

In non-verbal productions like "Nanta" and "Shut up, Play!", the audience wants to see the physical movements and facial expressions as well as hearing the sounds. Organisers have to remember that these are not "concerts".

"Shut up" was presented in the Esplanade Theatres by the Bay's Recital Studio, a fan-shaped space with seating for 245, meaning every patron was close to the stage action.

"Nanta" is being performed at least daily at three small venues in Seoul and Jeju, but its Bangkok debut is at the Royal Paragon Hall, which seats about 2,800 people.

Thanks to their experience, the five performers -who've manage to pick up a few Thai phrases - can efficiently adjust their energy for the larger hall and stage.

But most people in the audience have to rely on the projection screens alongside the stage to catch the details and nuances of the action. Sometimes these movements are so fast that the cameramen get lost.

I enjoyed "Nanta" in Seoul much more because of the smaller theatre. Not only is it clearer what's happening onstage, the audience can smell the ingredients and feel the heat of the cooking flame.

The only thing that looks realistic in the Bangkok production is a refrigerator filled with drinks from Singha, the show's main sponsor.

They're never put to use in the show, serving instead merely as a reminder of all the "product placement" on Thai TV, which is so ubiquitous that it surely amounts to negative promotion.

Medium-sized venues like M Theatre or the Aksra Theatre, with about 600 seats, would have provided a better viewing experience for "Nanta" without the need for projection screens. Of course, that would have meant less profit for the organiser.

In the meantime, small productions that leap cultural boundaries are travelling more frequently and farther than the big-scale musicals, regardless of audience size.

And after all, the success of a show shouldn't be gauged by the number of viewers, but by how much the viewers enjoyed it.

The writer wishes to thank Gina Koh of the Esplanade in Singapore and BEC-Tero's Atita Chiwaprecha Ducci and Anongsiri Udomsuk for their assistance.

KITCHEN CLOSING

"Nanta" has two performances remaining, today at 1 and 5pm at Royal Paragon Hall. The website is www.Nanta.co.kr/en.