Find the White Elephant at a new student stage play this weekend

While we all love a bit of theatre, we also know that student-led shows can be a funny thing. Sometimes they’re gloriously rough around the edges; sometimes you catch a glimpse of people who will end up running the city’s creative scene in 10 years’ time. Often it’s both.

To Find The White Elephant, staged this weekend at WEAVE Artisan Society, firmly sits in that intriguing middle ground. Created entirely by final-year students from the Faculty of Fine Arts at Chiang Mai University, the production is the culmination of their studies – and a chance to see what happens when a group of young theatre-makers are handed the keys to the whole process.

Brought to audiences this weekend by Lakorn White Elephant Project, with 7pm showings March 13-15, the story centres itself around two curious folks wrestling with some rather large questions: what is truly good, what is true beauty and simply ‘what’ could all this mean?

Their answer (or perhaps their escape) is a quest to find the mythical ‘White Elephant’ – a vague, possibly unreachable concept where truth and fulfilment collide. A topic that feels particularly fitting for a final-year student. Almost half philosophical search, half emotional unloading.

While the performance is delivered primarily in Thai, international audiences haven’t been forgotten, with English subtitles running alongside the dialogue, making the show one for every crowd.

The venue helps too. WEAVE Artisan Society has quietly become one of the city’s more interesting creative spaces, regularly hosting workshops, exhibitions and intimate performances between coffees and cocktails. 

Entry works on a suggested donation basis (minimum B150, free for students), with all support for the arts covering the student’s costs – and we all know how hard it is to find a budget when at uni.

Whether To Find The White Elephant ends up being a launching pad for future theatre stars or simply a fascinating snapshot of a group of artists figuring things out in real time, it’s exactly the kind of scrappy, thoughtful production that keeps the city’s arts scene alive. And if nothing else, it’s always worth following a white elephant – you never quite know where it might lead.