WHEN FIRE RAZED the home of Sakorn Yangkeawsot one night in 1999, the Thai puppet master lost his life's work. His collection of about 50 handmade marionettes was reduced to cinders.
'My father, who was 71 years old at the time, was devastated,' says Surin Yangkeawsot, 35, the puppet master's seventh son, who now runs the family's puppet troupe in Bangkok, the last bastion of traditional Thai small puppetry, known as hun lakorn lek.
The art thrived 300 years ago, but in 1901 Klay Sappatawanit created the first hun lakorn lek puppet that looked and moved realistically, thanks to a central rod and pulleys that could control different parts of the 6kg model at the same time.
Initially performed for royalty, Klay's shows soon became a popular form of entertainment. Unfortunately, the puppet master refused to pass on his knowledge, and the art was lost for more than 50 years until Sakorn Yangkeawsot, alias 'Joe Louis', revived it in 1985. As a child, Sakorn had fallen in love with puppets when he watched his parents perform with Klay.
'Small-puppet theatre is a very specialised art form,' says Surin. 'My father believed it must be protected and shared, as part of Thai heritage.' Sakorn was so determined to preserve this cultural legacy, he also became an actor, puppeteer and even puppet-maker, by watching and emulating their meticulous manufacture.
Each puppet takes a month to make. First, a clay model is prepared and left to dry. Then a special paper called kloy is glued on, piece by piece, for strength. The main frame is sanded down with chalk, painted and clothed in jewelled brocades. The puppet is left hollow for the 18 strings that allow the puppeteer to manipulate its movements, from flicking the marionette's fingers, to twisting its delicate wrists, and swaying its hips. Each puppet operates uniquely. Unlike the male puppet, the neck of the female is made of two wooden pieces. 'She' is able to move her head from side to side - to protest against her admirer's lascivious advances, for example. The comic puppet has a sliver of cloth connecting his upper and lower jaw. This allows him to open and shut his mouth, as if he is telling a joke or laughing at one. The attention to facial and body details breathes life into the marionettes.
When Sakorn developed his own hun lakorn lek troupe, he defied conventions. In the past, puppeteers were veterans in puppetry, but Sakorn entrusted the continuity of his art to his nine children and 18 grandchildren, whom he taught personally to act, play in the orchestra or make masks and costumes. The puppet master said everyone in his family had to master Thai classical dance and the traditional khon masked dance-drama that was the basis of the art. Surin was only seven when his father taught him his first dance steps. 'You must first learn to dance well, then you can manoeuvre the puppet and make it shadow you,' he says. 'You reach a point when you and the puppet are one. It helps that we are family.'