A Khmer stage play that was very popular around sixty years ago is showing its own uniqueness once again in
the new era, basically in Phnom Penh city.
LAKORN NIYEAY authors need to write the
story based on Khmer Poem Literature which mean it must be good in both grammatical
used and language used. Each foot that the actors use in the conversation of
the play always carries the meaning or hint behind that the audiences need to think
and evaluate while enjoying the show. More than that, the actors need to have
the special talent in acting as well as in using poetic tone so that the play
can sense the audiences well.
LAKORN NIYEAY was created in the colonial period in Cambodia, during the year 1944 and 1945. At first, all the stories of the play were originated for French which then translated and prepared in according to the stage-play format. The plays were first performed for the ruling class and then the civilian in both city and provinces. As the popularity gained, the number of the LAKORN NIYEAY artists and stories, both translated from French and wrote by the Cambodian authors, also increased.
Unfortunately, LAKORN NIYEAY was
disappeared during the period of KHMER ROUGE, and after the war end, the
popularity lost. The loss of the specialized artists as well as the documents of
LAKORN NIYEAY made this kind of art forgotten.
Currently, a small group of LAKORN NIYEAY artist of Royal University of Fine Arts (RUFA) is finding the ways to show the public about this kind of play by performing the stories in some social events. However, the activity and the support of LAKORN NIYEAY in the society today is still very limited since we can find this play in some part of the Phnom Penh city only.
