Broadway in Bangkok

(I considered back-dating this post, but figured it might get lost in the shuffle...so here it is, a little late!)

On Saturday, July 25th, Josh and I went to see a traveling Broadway show here in Bangkok. Yes, Bangkok does get traveling Broadway shows, in a theater designed specifically for them (more on that later).

The show in question was We Will Rock You, the musical based on the music of Queen, which had been recommended to us by some friends. This so-called "jukebox musical" is in the same category as recent shows such as Mamma Mia! (ABBA), Movin' Out (Billy Joel and Twyla Tharp), Our House (Madness), Good Vibrations (the Beach Boys), and so on. (If they ever make a musical based on the music of U2, I'll be there with my PopMart T-shirt and my inflatable lemon beach ball.* But I digress.)

I'm no huge Queen fan, but We Will Rock You was a very enjoyable, and suitably campy, show. The setting is 300 years in the future, when rock music has been outlawed, and a giant corporation (GlobalSoft) led by the Killer Queen (and her henchman, Keshoggi) controls the world through the copious application of bubblegum pop and reality TV shows. It falls to the young rebel Galileo Figaro, his girlfriend Scaramouche, and the rest of the "Bohemians" (who take their names from past legends and are led by tough-guy "Vic", aka "Victoria Beckham") to follow the Ancient Signs to find the Sacred Instruments stored in the Place of Champions in the Heart of the Living Rock and save the day. Many Queen songs are repurposed as accompaniment, including "Under Pressure" and "Another One Bites the Dust", and the show culminates with a giant sing-along of "Bohemian Rhapsody". There were lots of other audience participation moments as well, which seemed to bewilder the polite Thai gentleman sitting next to us (his children were getting into it, though).

The cast of the traveling company was, interestingly enough, mostly South African and Australian (since I've only seen US traveling companies before, I'm used to mostly American actors and actresses). They did a great job!

The theater which plays host to traveling Broadway shows here is the Muangthai Ratchadalai Theatre, which is brand new (just built in 2007, actually) and is located on the top floor of the Esplanade shopping mall not too far from here (we took the MRT, or subway, to get there). The inclusion of theaters in shopping centers here seems to be much more common than standalone theaters, which makes sense for space-saving concerns. We did end up sitting in the very last row-- my fault for not looking closely enough at the ticket diagram!-- but were still able to see everything pretty well. The language issue was taken care of through four large (but unobtrusive) screens at about each corner of the stage, showing surtitles in Thai.

One definite difference about the shows here: the merchandising. We bought the glossy souvenir program for 100 baht-- approximately US$3. This is the same program that would cost about $15 in the States. T-shirts were similarly priced, at 300 baht! (Moral: if you want show stuff and the show is coming to Bangkok, let me know and I'll get you the goodies, cheap!) The tickets, on the other hand, were a bit more expensive than in the US, but still not bad.

All in all, it was a very enjoyable evening, and we're going to keep a close eye on what else comes to town...

*Actually, I no longer have the inflatable lemon, because I passed it on to a wide-eyed young U2 fan before coming to Thailand. Oh well.