Clown puppets are ugly and can even have movable chins and genitals, but they are also know to be insightful (much like Shakespeare's fools). Puppets who represent gods are always the smallest in size. The puppet that represents the hero tends to be small with delicate features while the villain puppet tends to be large and unattractive.
Usually the puppets have one articulated arm clowns typically have two moveable arms. There are two types of shadow theater in Thailand: nang talang and nangyai.
Hun krabog is still performed and its repertory includes Ramakien as well as other Thai epics.Thai shadow puppets are used in both classical and folk theater. Thus the manipulation of the puppet is simpler compared with the complicated court puppets. Their hands, manipulated by bamboo rods, protrude from the cloak-like costume of the puppet, which also forms the puppet’s body. The puppets are some 50 centimetres high, but they have no movable arms or legs. The repertory includes scenes from the Ramakien, although comical elements are often emphasised more than, for example, in khon.Īnother form of popular puppet theatre created in the 20 th century is hun krabog.
The audience can see the mechanism as well as the dance-like movements of the puppeteers, which make hun lakhon lek a kind of combination of puppet theatre and dance-drama. The puppets are some 50 centimetres high and they are operated from below with bamboo sticks. It was hun lakhon lek and it was performed for ordinary audiences. In the early 20 th century a new form of puppet theatre was created. Nang Sida (Sita), a hun krabok doll Jukka O. Their repertory included Ramakien and Thai epics performed in the lakhon nai and lakhon nok styles, from which they also derived their performance practices and music.Ī hun lakhon lek puppet in the collection of the Muang Boran Museum Jukka O. In the 1880s Thai-style hun lek puppets were also created. Their complicated mechanism was modelled on the larger hun luang puppets. These puppets, some 40 centimetres high, are called hun lek and they were intended for performances derived from Chinese repertory. In the latter part of the 19 th century King Rama V ordered smaller puppets made by the Chinese community of Bangkok. The repertory of hun luang included Ramakien and local epics such as Phra Aphaimani, discussed earlier. The exact technique of their complicated manipulation is no longer known. They are some one-metre tall and they were operated with strings from below. The large court puppets or hun luang were used in the first part of the 19 th century. Hun was originally popular even at the court, as shown by the impressive collection of puppets in the National Museum in Bangkok. Miettinen Hun luang puppets in the collection of the Bangkok National Museum before their restoration Jukka O. Hun lek puppets in the collection of the Bangkok National Museum Jukka O. Nang talung is still performed in the Pattalung district of Southern Thailand, although cinema and television have eroded its former popularity. The puppeteers and the orchestra sit inside the hut and they are separated from the audience by a white screen. The stage used to be a small hut of bamboo, matting, or corrugated iron. Nang talung requires a group of some ten performers, including the leader, who usually acts as the main manipulator and narrator, his assistants, and the orchestra. Each has its own characteristics: one constantly moves its mouth, while another has a phallus-shaped index finger, and a third has features of southern Thai aboriginals. They offer obscene humour, often characteristic of nang talung and always loved by the audience. The popular characters are the stock clowns, such as Ai Nol, Ai Tong, Al Muang, and Ai Klang. Miettinen Nang talung puppets, on the left a traditional figure from the Ramakien, on the right Western characters Jukka O. Nang talun puppets, on the left Western colonial officers, on the right a local beauty Jukka O.