Traditional Performing Arts in Bangkok
A visual guide from the Bangkok travel guide — see all posters in Visual Guides.
A khon mask has no mouth, so the entire story travels through the hands, the shoulders and a narrator's voice, while a piphat ensemble drives it forward on tuned gong circles and a xylophone of hardwood bars. It is slower, stranger and far more formal than the tourist-dinner version suggests. Bangkok stages it in a 1933 art-deco cinema on the edge of Chinatown, in the National Theatre beside the river, and — in the puppet tradition — in shows where three operators share a single half-metre figure between them.
Where to watch
Sala Chalermkrung Royal Theatre near Pahurat is the atmospheric choice: Thailand's first air-conditioned cinema, still working, with condensed khon programmes aimed at visitors and occasional fuller productions. The National Theatre next to the National Museum runs a monthly schedule of classical dance and music at low prices, largely for a Thai audience, and tickets are rarely hard to get. The Thailand Cultural Centre, beside the MRT Blue Line station named after it, hosts everything from the Bangkok Symphony to visiting companies. Hun lakhon lek puppet troupes still perform, though the venues have moved more than once, so check current listings the week you arrive.
What you are watching
Khon dramatises the Ramakien, the Thai telling of the Ramayana. Only demons and monkeys wear full masks — fanged and crowned for the former, round-muzzled for the latter — while the human and divine roles wear tiered headdresses and keep their faces visible, which is how you follow who is who. The piphat ensemble behind it also scores Muay Thai: at Rajadamnern and Lumpinee the sarama music quickens as the rounds get serious, and that is the easiest place in Bangkok to hear the instruments live. Likay, the glittery, improvised folk theatre, still turns up at neighbourhood fairs.