Theatre and Seduction: the Politics of Aesthetic Judgements in Thailand

Abstract

This paper is presented in honour of Doug Miles, who taught me as an undergraduate student, supervised my Honours thesis on Balinese kinship and encouraged me to do fieldwork on theatrical forms in Thailand. Doug was my supervisor in the initial stages of fieldwork in Bangkok and stimulated my interest in theatre as an anthropological enterprise that could reveal the fundamental dimensions of South and Southeast Asian cultures. The present paper explores the seductive appeal of likay, a popular Thai theatre genre that can be appropriated to ensure commercial, ritual and political gain. Drawing on some of the arguments made in my doctoral dissertation on likay, I demonstrate how the very qualities that make it attractive as a political and religious strategy, its sensuous appeal and crowd-drawing capacity, make it vulnerable to negative aesthetic, ideological and moral evaluations by those in power. Following Doug, I stress that theatre, like any other form of cultural production, must be situated within its historical and political context. My fascination with the concept of charisma, which I use to illuminate the seductive aspects of likay, also reflects Doug's influence.

Keywords:

• Likay
• Thai theatre
• Aesthetics
• Charisma
• Seduction
• Audience

Acknowledgements

This is an edited version of a paper given in the section ‘Counting the Miles’ at the annual Australian Anthropology Conference held at James Cook University (Cairns), September 2006. The material presented in this paper is based on 18-months fieldwork in Thailand between 1982 and 1983, which was funded, in part, by the Carlyle Greenwell Bequest Fund, Department of Anthropology, University of Sydney. I acknowledge the encouragement and invaluable intellectual advice given to me during the writing up of my thesis by my supervisor Dr Vivienne Kondos and thank Dr Neil Maclean and Professor Michael Allen for their insightful comments on early drafts of my thesis. I also thank Dr Jenny Alexander for her editorial comments and Associate Professor Paul Cohen for his helpful suggestions.