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ART SCENE
45
timeout
want the audience to experience.”
An exciting ambiance is created
when the most powerful son of Pàndava
family, Bhìma, kills the devil Bakàsura,
saving scores from being eaten alive.
Later, an archery competition takes
place to decide who will win the hand
of beautiful princess Dràupadì. Ulti-
mately, the princess becomes the wife
of all five Pandava brothers. When the
Pandavas comes back to regain their
land from their father’s maternal half
brother who took the throne, a very
fierce 18-day war breaks out between
two factions, leaving hundreds of thou-
sands dead and ending the play in a
crescendo of action.
Cambodian dancer, Phon Sopheap,
plays four roles every performance. “It
is a very demanding show given the fre-
quency of costume changes,” he says.
Chumvan Sodhachivy plays Prin-
cess Dràupadì. She finds the songs most
challenging: “Normally, I do not really
sing. But in this piece, I have to sing two
kinds of songs, one traditional and the
other I have to scream and use strong
facial expressions at the same time.”
Director Koike says he did not iden-
tify with the meaning of the play fully
at the beginning. Moreover, he does
not seek to define it for others, believ-
ing that performing art has its own
language and each person has another
way of interpreting it. He hopes the
play can bridge the ages and connect
the past and the present, while also
bridging borders and connecting coun-
tries and cultures.
The play has drawn rave reviews
from the press and audience members
alike. “I feel a stir in my heart and my
mind after watching this play. A woeful
and majestic story which has survived
generations has been compressed into
a one hour play with just seven actors,
but I still feel its mythology, its impos-
ing power and much emotion through
it,” said a fellow audience member,
Trang, following the performance.
Having made the play a success
here in Vietnam, Hiroshi Koike now
has grand designs on taking it further
afield, to India, Japan any many other
countries besides.
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