Women Of Asia returns to the spotlight almost three decades after its conception here in Thailand. Written and directed by Korean-American theatre artist Asa Gim Palomera, the play comprises eight unrelated scenes and monologues inspired by real-life stories of women across Asia, collected from news articles and humanitarian agencies. And while in Palomera's hands the stories are moving and ring true, the play is stylistically dated and heavy-handed to the point of distraction.

WomenOf Asia
continues its run until Sunday. The shows are nightly at 7.30pm, with a2pmmatinee on Saturday, and only a matinee performance on Sunday, at Sodsai Pantoomkomol Centre for Dramatic Arts, Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University. Tickets cost 600 baht (300 baht for students). Call 02-218-4802 or 081-559-7252 or visit www.facebook.com/dramaartschula. The play is in English and Thai with subtitles in both languages. Photos courtesy of Chulalongkorn University
There is a not-so-submissive Asian woman of opera, a child prostitute and eventual victim of an international sex trade network, a Filipina maid working for a cruel Kuwaiti princess, a Thai woman and a Japanese man in a marriage weighed down by culinary and cultural differences, a Japanese woman whose dignity and sense of self are eroded by a joyless marriage, Indian women defying and perpetuating repressive traditions, and a larger-than-life wife of a powerful man.
Palomera treats some of these stories with wit and humour, but the artist often spells her messages out for the audience, "Tradition is pure bondage", say the Indian women in unison. And although Palomera plays with different stereotypes of Asian women _ the "Milking Madame Butterfly" monologue being the most successful _ she occasionally falls victim to cultural stereotypes. In the "Dowry" scene, for example, female Indian characters adopt traditional dance moves and hand gestures as they speak.
Her writing conjures powerful images, too. In the "Japanese Woman in San Francisco" scene, the wife of a drunken and indifferent man comes to equate sex with "the smell of alcohol"; she feels like a woman who "doesn't have a vagina"; her husband is a stranger and she his "daily routine".
The stylised acting demanded of the performers finds both success and imbalance. The over-the-top quality works well with veteran stage actress and singer Radklao Amratisha, in the role of the sassy Butterfly in "Milking Madame Butterfly". The performer manages to maintain the character's charm and oomph even as her monologue spirals into a university literary criticism lecture. Another veteran thespian, Patravadi Mejudhon, as "Woman at the Top", fills the theatre with her presence and exploits that quality to captivating effect, even though her character is cursorily drawn and too predictable for the wife of a powerful politician. Some of the younger performers seem uncomfortable with the text and the required style of performance, but compensate for that with the kind of commitment and energy that is touching.

Transaction
continues its run until Monday at 8pm, at Democrazy Theatre Studio, Soi Saphan Khu. Tickets cost 499 and 599 baht, depending on the day. Call 08-5160-1677 or 08-1498-7660 or email yaigan@hotmail.com. The show is in Thai with an English interpreter available upon request. Photo by Teeraphan Ngowjeenanan
Another production continuing its run this week is Transaction. This piece by young choreographer/director/dancer Thanapol Virulhakul has been creating quite a buzz with promotional material of endearing visual wit and humour that promises a good amount of skin from its young, mostly male cast. What also intrigued me was the show's sly Thai subtitle Por-Niyom (sufficiency-ism) _ what I think is a jab at the sufficiency economy propagated and supposedly practised by the morally superior who equate money with corruption and vulgarity.
And Transaction plays with that notion of vulgarity by putting its audience right in a market of sorts, where there are those who pay (the spectators) and those who are paid (the cast and the crew). There is entertainment, charities, humanitarian causes, sex, flesh and games, for you to spend your money on without being judged, except by your own principles and attitude towards money.
The first part of the show unfolds like a series of commercials. We have the choice of paying for bottled water, potato chips, participation in something resembling group humping, an intimate dance with an attractive young man, chairs, bananas for animals, plastic balls to throw at monsters that threaten our security, a mosh-pit experience _ everything from the practical to the ridiculous.
The second part gets more intimate with each performer revealing their personal stories before asking for financial support for their causes, which range from gay marriage, sexual liberty, and freedom of speech to plastic surgery for a prettier face, a new finger, and the rights of silkworms. All this money and the effort to raise it is needed to cover production costs, even though there is no performance for us.
Like Thanapol's Post Show Talk With Pina Bausch, Transaction uses the audience to co-create and complete the message. Whereas art likes to disassociate itself from money in principle, but can never do so in practice, Thanapol plants us in an economic and class system that forces us to question our moral attitude towards money. He and his performers vulgarise the products on offer as if to make us feel more comfortable and less judgemental about spending money.
And in the process, Transaction reminds us of the oft-forgotten transactional nature of the relationship between the audience and the artist by vulgarising an exchange commonly perceived as chaste and earnest.