FEATURE
Not the Same Old Song and Dance
A scene from the play “Land of Smiles”
A creative musical challenges priorities in international efforts to end human trafficking By SEAMUS MARTOV / CHIANG MAI, Thailand
ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF WWW.LANDOFSMILESMUSICAL.COM
July 2014
A
musical centered on the life of a fictional refugee from Myanmar appears at first glance an unlikely venue for a detailed critique of US antitrafficking policies and their impact on the women they were ostensibly designed to protect. But “Land of Smiles,” which had its Asian premiere in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai with a cast that included several offBroadway veterans, is not your typical musical with a message. The play’s dual protagonists are both newcomers to Thailand. Lipoh is a young Kachin woman who has fled fighting in Myanmar’s northernmost state, and Emma is an idealistic American law-school graduate who has come to Asia to join the global fight against human trafficking. Early on in the play, Lipoh’s stint working at a Chiang Rai brothel ends when she is detained by police working in cooperation with the Western-funded NGO where Emma has just started her
internship. Emma’s superior at the NGO, a fellow American, assigns Emma the task of coaxing Lipoh, who is being incarcerated in a grim immigration detention center supposedly for her own protection, to testify against the brothel owner and her friends who helped her get to Thailand. But Lipoh refuses to play along. “Because I am not a victim,” she tells Emma. As the play unfolds, Emma begins to question her NGO colleagues’ efforts to compel Lipoh to accept the role of victim and use her case to get more funding for their organization. “Back in Indiana / Life is black and white / Nothing is too dark / Nothing’s too bright / It’s easy to distinguish wrong from right,” Emma sings after coming to the realization that things aren’t so clear-cut in Thailand. “Land of Smiles” was written and produced by Erin Kamler, a Los Angeles-based playwright, composer and PhD candidate. The play—which will be staged in Los Angeles this month TheIrrawaddy
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