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Virtually all the classical theatrical traditions in Southeast Asia base their dramas on the Hindu epics The Ramayana and the Mahabharata. The Thai Khon is no exception and takes its narrative from the Hindu epic The Ramayana. The epic provides a wide variety of character types as well as an underlying thread of appropriate behavior for the good guys, what to watch out for with the bad ones, and to be careful of feminine desires for pets or baubles. After all, Rama is the seventh incarnation of the god Vishnu, brought into the world to restore the balance between good and evil, the latter personified by Ravana whose lust for Rama’s wife Sita is the trigger for the epic and the drama. It is amazing and instructive just how durable and adaptable the epics are, even now, for performance and artistic interpretation. Change in the Thai theatrical form is evident, but how far reaching is questionable. When Faubion Bowers published Theater in the East in 1956, based on his 1954 articles for The New Yorker, the Khon was not only royal, but, like Kathakali, the Indian dance drama form, it was all male, presumably even queens like Sita. Now Sita is very much a woman, the golden deer also a woman and I believe Lakshmana as well. Unlike Kathakali, where the character’s type is painted on the face, the characters of Ravana, the demon behind the Golden Deer and Hanuman are all masked. In this particular performance, the reciter is absent and the musical accompaniment limited to three Thai Xylophones and a drum. The convex wooden instruments with high ends were painted red. The musicians sat tailor-fashion on the floor behind them.

Stylistically the Khon emanates from a hot climate, where the aerial qualities of ballet would have led to wholesale human slaughter without air conditioning. Like Cambodian,Javanese and Balinese traditions, the dancers are barefoot, the women move rapidly in a demi- plie position, knees close to each other; the men most frequently move in excellent second position postures or in the fencing position where one leg is used as the fulcrum and one leg moves the body forward and back as the character combats his opponent. At peaks of battle, Rama manages to surmount Ravana, back leg in attitude, foot cocked at the ankle. Except for the somersaults of Hanuman, the Monkey King, this is as aerial as the dance-drama gets and the audience applauded appreciatively. The stretched fingers with filigree movements as the hands circled from the wrist, completing arm undulations and the character's commands, testified to hours of drill, practice and study from a tender age.

The program, just an hour long, presented two scenes: the appearance of the Golden Deer and Sita’s persuading Rama to get it for her over the better judgment of brother Lakshmana, Ravana in disguise and then in his full evil manifestation, taking Sita back to Sri Lanka, and the combat between Rama and Ravana. Two dancers, the Golden Deer and Ravana, slipped off the stage when the guise had been wounded or exhausted to be replaced by the real figure, masked.

The unmasked dancers (Sita, Rama, Laksmana, the Golden Deer, the Hermit)managed to convey emotion with their eyes and postures while their faces remained impassive. The formality was enlivened only by Hanuman's comic elements and the shifting and scuffling, still quite formal, in the combat scenes. Within the form, the performers were letter perfect.

Two final notes. One is that the costumes out classed anything which American show biz can offer for glitter with their costumes of silk jacquard, pantaloon-like for the men, short sarong for Sita, tunics embroidered with pounds of glass beading along with sashes and the sass of epaulets topped by stiff tassels as they ended in upward peaks. The helmets, likewise, were covered with iridescent beads, ending in finials, their vertical configuration doubtless providing clues to the initiate as to their character. Given the climate, one wonders how long these substantial tunics last, how heavy they must be and the woman hours required to complete just one costume; the trimming is scarcely something one tacks on by the yard.

The final note is that like ballet conventions the Khon is an acquired taste, even for those Thais privileged to watch it from childhood. The program could have provided an even intenser pleasure had the audience been given comments with some demonstration prior to the actual drama. This practice, commonplace with local programs particularly of Indian classical dance, expands the desired end of deepened cultural appreciation.