The Continuation and the Adaptation of Sunthon Phu’s Phra Aphai Mani to Lakhon Ram Texts by the Fine Arts Department

Abstract

The main purpose of this article is to study the continuation and the adaptation of the literature Phra Aphai Mani of Sunthon Phu as Lakhon Ram texts of the Fine Arts Department during 1952-2018. According to the research, the Lakhon Ram texts preserve a number of points from Phra Aphai Mani of Sunthon Phu, specifically, the continuation of contents, characters, along with original Klons of Sunthon Phu. In terms of modification, specifically with form modification, the Fine Arts Department modified the original version of Sunthon Phu’s and some other components to make them more suitable to the application of real performance. The new components include composing new Klons later added to the original version, adding musical and Na Phat performance, the making of acts and scenes and performance supervising. In terms of contents, the main modifications are the reduction of some details, the increasing and rearrangment of situations, all of which are for performance suitability. Concerning characters, some of the dominant ones were increased, and the others were reduced or modified for appropriation. In addition, new show sets were added for more performance attraction.