Strings of Life: The Exiles Bringing Traditional Burmese Puppetry to Bangkok
“When they’re not performing, we cover their faces because we believe they have souls”
Khin Maung Htwe and his family, one of the few remaining authentic Burmese Yoke Thé puppetry troupes, fled Myanmar and its brutal military government in June, for the safety of Bangkok. Oo, Htwe’s wife, misses their home in Yangon and worries about her elderly mother, but Htwe and his two children enjoy life here, and his son is hoping to go to university in Thailand. And what still unites them and keeps them going is their art.
Yoke Thé can be traced back to at least the 15th century and reached peak popularity in the 1800s. Like many traditional art forms in Southeast Asia – Thailand’s Chinese opera or Vietnam’s Hát Tuồng for example – it was THE form of mass entertainment before the arrival of radio, cinema and TV, and served as storytelling, news/propaganda dissemination, and an oblique (and therefore mostly safe) way to satirise and poke fun at officialdom.
And like those other art forms, its popularity has waned over the last century – Htwe tells me there are very few puppet masters left in Myanmar and those that remain mostly perform shorter shows for tourists (a real Yoke Thé show should last all night). Thankfully Htwe has taught his children well and they are highly skilled puppeteers, and just as passionate about the art as their parents, and they now perform every Thursday evening at Prince Theatre, in Bangkok’s Bang Rak district.
I joined them one evening to meet them and photograph them as they set up their equipment (most of which – including their 28 valuable puppets – they brought over from Myanmar with them), and performed a short rehearsal for me so I could shoot close-up. Then came the show itself and whilst initially I was too busy taking photos to pay it much attention, once I sat and watched I was amazed at the skill of Oo, Thet, and Paing, as they manipulated their puppets – most of them have at least 20 strings which enable the puppeteers to move them in a eerily realistic manner.
The performances are wordless and accompanied by music, which means there is no language barrier, and the stories themselves are universal tales of love, good vs evil, vice and virtue and so on, and can be easily understood. It’s a truly magical experience and the chance to experience an ancient art close up, and to meet those keeping it alive.
Htwe Oo Myanmar puppet troupe perform every Thursday at Prince Theatre Heritage Stay, from 20:00
