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A story in the shadows The mastery of Thai puppetry
Text & Photography by Brent Lewin

Life was very simple growing up in a small village, explains an elderly

Suchart Subsin reclining in a chair at his home in Nakhon Si Themmart, a charming
town off the Gulf of Thailand and 600 kilometres south of Bangkok. When I was 14, I
made a decision that I wanted to be a famous shadow puppeteer, says Suchart,
grinning. I wanted to be a superstar! Suchart, now 73 years old, has certainly
fulfilled his dream and is an acknowledged self-taught master of the shadow puppet
craft, or nang talung, in Thailand. Over the years, he has received several awards for
his mastery and preservation of the art and he has performed for the King of
Thailand in addition to audiences as far away as Germany, Holland, India and Japan.
Nang talung performances are typically based on stories from the Ramakien,
the Thai version of the Indian Ramayana. The epic story is one of the major texts in
the Hindu religion and portrays the duties in relationships. With a long history of
being the leading form of entertainment during Thailands Ayutthaya dynasty, these
storied of gods were used as vehicles to transmit important Thai values in a
changing world. Though considered a drying art form in present day Thailand,
Suchart has adapted to the timed and infuses these traditional stories with modern
day storylines, humour and props such as airplanes and mobile phones.
What makes Suchart unique is that he is not only a master performer but he
also makes the intricately designed puppets himself. The fascinating process of
making a typical nang talung puppet, 70 centimetres in height with movable parts,
can take anywhere between two days to a month depending in the detail. Puppets
are most commonly made from cow skin through Suchart had made puppets from
both tiger and bear skin in the past. A macabre display of buffalo skulls hang
throughout his home and in the beautiful adjacent museum he had set up for visitors.
Suchart explains, Once the skin is stripped from the animal, the fat must be
cleaned off and the skin is soaked in vinegar for three days. The skin is then

smoothed out, stretched and left to dry outside, the only other thing left to do is to
decide which characters to make.
Characters fall into categories of gods and royalty, hermits, demons and
comedians. A detailed design is drawn and attached to the leather where the design
is then etched put with great detail. Once this long process is complete, the leather
characters are then painted and mounted in bamboo rods, which are used to create
the puppets movements. Suchart has since scaled back on making puppets. His
immediate and extended family are now in charge of their production.
Recognising that the folk art of nang talung is slowly disappearing in modern
day Thailand, Suchart has made it his personal mission to keep this dying art alive.
He seems to set apart the performance from the puppet itself. Suchart explains that,
the shadows cast is the performance but the puppet is the work of art. Even if nang
talung performances are one day not around, the one thing that will survive is the
puppets that I have created.
To keep the tradition alive, Suchart still regularly performs at his home and
around the country in addition to teaching others about the craft at local arts colleges
in the South.
Past kings including our present king have always been interested in nang
talung, reflects Suchart. It concerns me that this art might one day lose its
popularity in Thailand because the storied told and lessons learned in these tales are
important to our religion, culture and politics. Every time I put on a show Im just
proud that I have the opportunity to pass these stories along to a younger
generation.

Source: Readers Digest, July 2011. Page 92-99.