Scene Zero's Shogo Tanikawa emerges with another play about outsiders. While last year's 4 Seasons draws sensitive and convincing portraits of Thai immigrants in Japan, this year's Hero gives us characters that are either blurry or just plain ludicrous.
For a play about refugees and society's cruelty toward them, Hero treats its two refugee characters with very little specificity. One is the family's maid (Prynlada Arbhabhirama), who has a tight bond with the family. The other (Tanikawa) has just been taken in by the daughter of the family. The play puts more focus on the compassionate and powerless family that illegally provides them shelter and protects them from a brutal and corrupt regime.
Powerlessness, however, is the least of the problems of these well-meaning parents (Sonny Chatwiriyachai and Pornphen Fah-amnuay) and their college-age daughter (Vasuthida Punwattana). These three characters are so preposterously stupid that they end up hurting those they are trying to protect. The mother and the daughter behave in an exaggeratedly suspicious manner in front of their guest, an official known for his ruthlessness against refugees (Saifah Tanthana), in a cover-up attempt. Of all the rooms in the house in which the family could hide the refugee, they choose the guest bathroom. The father calls his superior to ask him to change the laws concerning asylum seekers, only to end up yelling at his boss and getting fired. Well, daddy obviously needs education in the legislative process, and apparently so does Tanikawa.
Tanikawa has written quirky plays before, with varying degrees of success, but Hero is not only poorly written; it simply does not make any sense. At one point, I thought the play was going to reveal itself to be an absurdist play, but it swerved right back into its sentimentalist and melodramatic lane.
If you follow American politics, you might recognise the platitudes and buzzwords sputtered by these characters: "We must resist!" "Capitalism," followed by an obligatory sigh just in case you still don't know how you should feel about it. Hero feels more like a response to Trump's America than Prayut's Thailand. The irony here is that the junta leader's policies and rhetoric regarding the Rohingya refugees have been even more careless and dehumanising. But Tanikawa does not borrow any language of resistance from Thailand on this matter. Perhaps because there isn't any.
Is the hero in the title the family, the maid or the hiding refugee? Certainly, they are all powerless in their own way and fighting to help those in more disadvantaged circumstances. But since the play is more focused on the act of rescuing, sheltering and protecting, the family and the maid, who is very much part of the family, feel more central here.
I don't have a problem with the family being the central characters in a story about refugees. The problem is that these "heroes" do not come off as altruistic but rather as narcissistic. And I'm not sure that's Tanikawa's intention. When the mother objects to the daughter's plan to shelter a refugee, the daughter pouts and says it makes her sad. Later, the daughter congratulates her mother for her bravery and kindness, using social media parlance -- "clicking Like" -- even though it's their own stupidity that has landed everyone in danger. The play is a product of an age where the feelings of those in a position to help are of greater importance than the reality of those in need of help. Perhaps that's why we know so little about the refugee characters and their circumstances. The play tells us that being a hero isn't about our action and how it affects others; it's what we feel about our action that matters.
Hero continues this weekend, on March 30 and 31, at 2pm and 7.30pm, at Buffalo Bridge Gallery. Tickets are 550 baht. Call 095-901-4588 or visit the Scene Zero Facebook page.
