Exploring Gender Issues in Thai Contemporary Musical Theatre: Focused on Main Female Characters

Abstract

Since 2003, contemporary musical theatre has been well‐received among the middle class in Bangkok, Thailand. In addition to the splendid new theatre at the center of the city, the increasing numbers of theater‐goers reaffirm the popularity of the contemporary musical among a wide range of Thai audiences. This phenomenon has evoked professional and academic aspirations of those in the field of theatre arts In response to the call for academic research on contemporary musical theatre from the Thai cultural context, the researcher focused her study on the seven Thai contemporary musical theatres which were produced during the past six years. Interestingly, it is apparent that “gender issues” have become their prime essence replicated in two areas: 1) the main plot in the aspect of “love and boundaries of love” reflecting various issues, such as gender, age, class, nationality, and religion; and 2) the main female character who struggles to overcome her boundaries of love in order to gain happiness at the end of the story. The objective of this paper is to explore the “gender issues” through the main female characters portrayed in the selected musical theatres. The “gender issues” are analyzed through three aspects of the main female characters: 1) their actions, 2) their super‐objective, and 3) the outcome of their actions. In addition, this study aims to understand the repeated, questioned, and defined identities of the main female characters. It is hoped that this research will stimulate a fruitful discussion among those theatre arts researchers, and further their ideas and thoughts in developing the body of knowledge of the Thai theatrical field.