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The Preah Suramarit National Theatre or the Bassac Theatre was the former national theatre of Cambodia in the capital Phnom Penh. [1]
Designed by chief national architect Vann Molyvann in 1966, it opened in 1968 as the Grand Théâtre Preah Bat Norodom Suramarit (aka Mohorsrop Theatre). [1] The theatre building became a landmark structure in modern Phnom Penh. It was demolished in 2008. [2]
During renovation efforts in February 1994, there was disastrous fire that gutted the entire auditorium and the venue has remained a burned-out shell ever since.
Since the late 1990s, there have been many unsuccessful efforts to seek funds for the restoration of the theatre and to redevelop it as an organisational base and national venue. A $20,000 project by the late Cambodian architect Brum Dar-ravudh had provided the facilities for several rehearsal spaces. Meanwhile, the National Theatre's head, former dancer Mao Keng, had aimed to build a brand-new, state-of-the-art building, which has been rejected by the Cambodian Council of Ministers. A project for a completely new theatre that included dressing rooms, a cafeteria and a swimming pool was proposed in 1999 but never got the green light. [3]
In the ensuing years, neither the Ministry of Culture nor any of the Cambodian cultural or political establishments have been able to raise the finances to restore the theatre and approve any proposals, resulting in a protracted stalemate.
In early 2005, the disposal of the theatre site was given to a local developer and business man Kith Meng, who later executed its complete destruction.
Filmmaker Rithy Panh's 2005 docudrama, The Burnt Theatre , is set in the remains of the theatre, and depicts a theatre troupe struggling to practice their art and keep fine arts alive in Cambodia.
Phnom Penh is the capital and most populous city of Cambodia. It has been the national capital since the French protectorate of Cambodia and has grown to become the nation's primate city and its economic, industrial, and cultural centre. Before Phnom Penh became capital city, Oudong was the capital of the country.
Norodom Sihanouk was a member of the Cambodian royal house who led the country as King and Prime Minister. In Cambodia, he is known as Samdech Euv. During his lifetime, Cambodia was under various regimes, from French colonial rule, a Japanese puppet state (1945), an independent kingdom (1953–1970), a military republic (1970–1975), the Khmer Rouge regime (1975–1979), a Vietnamese-backed communist regime (1979–1989), a transitional communist regime (1989–1993) to eventually another kingdom.
Articles related to Cambodia and Cambodian culture include:
Banteay Meanchey is a province of Cambodia located in the far northwest. It borders the provinces of Oddar Meanchey to the north, Siem Reap to the east, Battambang to the south, and shares an international border with Thailand to the west. Its capital and largest city is Serei Saophoan.
Norodom Suramarit was King of Cambodia from 3 March 1955 until his death in 1960. He was the father of King Norodom Sihanouk and the grandfather of Cambodia's current king, Norodom Sihamoni. Suramarit was born in Phnom Penh to Prince Norodom Sutharot. When his grandfather King Norodom died in 1904, Norodom's brother Sisowath took the throne. King Sisowath died in 1927 and was succeeded by his son Monivong.
Sisowath Monivong was the King of Cambodia from 9 August 1927 until his death in 1941. During his reign, Cambodia was a French protectorate. Monivong was the grandson of the poet-king Ang Duong, grandfather of Norodom Sihanouk and the great-grandfather of the current king, Norodom Sihamoni. His full regnal title and style was Preah Bat Samdech Preah Serey Monivarman Krom Luang Chao Chakrabangsa Sisowath Monivong Ney Preah Reacheanachak Kampuchea which can be literally translated from Khmerized Sanskrit as "His majesty, glorious lord scholar-protector; His highness, lord of land and sea, Sisowath Monivong of the Kingdom of Kampuchea". He is the most recent male monarch from the House of Sisowath, as all his successors are members of the House of Norodom.
Norodom Sihamoni is King of Cambodia. He became King on 14 October 2004, a week after the abdication of his father, Norodom Sihanouk.
The National Olympic Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. It has a capacity of 50,000. Despite its name, the stadium has never hosted an Olympic Games.
The Royal Palace of Cambodia is a complex of buildings which serves as the official royal residence of the King of Cambodia. Its full name in Khmer is the Preah Barom Reacheaveang Chaktomuk Serey Mongkol. The Cambodian monarchs have occupied it since it was built in the 1860s, with a period of absence when the country came into turmoil during and after the reign of the Khmer Rouge.
The National Museum of Cambodia is Cambodia's largest museum of cultural history and is the country's leading historical and archaeological museum. It is located in Chey Chumneas, Phnom Penh.
The Silver Pagoda is located on the south side of the Royal Palace in Chey Chumneas, Phnom Penh. The official name is Wat Ubaosoth Ratanaram, also known as Wat Preah Keo Morakot which is commonly shortened to Wat Preah Keo in Khmer.
The Burnt Theatre, or Les Artistes du Théâtre Brûlé, is a 2005 French-Cambodian docudrama directed and co-written by Rithy Panh. A blend of fact and fiction, based on the actual lives of the actors, the film depicts a troupe of actors and dancers struggling to practise their art in the burned-out shell of Cambodia's former national theatre, the Preah Suramarit National Theatre in Phnom Penh.
Vann Molyvann was a Cambodian architect and urban planner. Molyvann is best known as pioneering the style known as New Khmer Architecture, which combined modernism and Khmer tradition, and accounted for the country's unique environment and irrigation needs.
Norodom Boulevard, also called Street 41, is a major boulevard in Cambodia and one of Phnom Penh's oldest arterial roads. It was named after King Norodom. It connects with Monivong Bridge in the south-east of the city at the Bassac River and joins with the north of the city at Wat Phnom.
New Khmer Architecture was an architectural movement in Cambodia during the 1950s and 1960s. The style blended elements of the Modern movement with two distinctly Cambodian traditions: the great Khmer tradition of Angkor and the vernacular architecture tradition of domestic buildings. The term was coined by authors Helen Grant Ross and Darryl Leon Collins.
The Chaktomuk Conference Hall is a theatre located in the city of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The fan-shaped hall is one of the most iconic works of famous Cambodian architect Vann Molyvann and was since its construction in 1961 one of the "landmarks and infrastructures of the newly independent nation".
Sihanoukville, also known as Kampong Saom, is a coastal city in Cambodia and the capital of Preah Sihanouk Province, at the tip of an elevated peninsula in the country's south-west on the Gulf of Thailand. The city has a string of beaches along its coastline and coastal marshlands bordering Ream National Park in the east. It has one navigable river, the mangrove-lined Ou Trojak Jet, running from Otres Pagoda to the sea at Otres. Several sparsely inhabited islands under Sihanoukville's administration are near the city.
The Khmer keyboard includes several keyboard layouts for Khmer script.
The Vann Molyvann House is a landmark of the city of Phnom Penh built in 1966 by Khmer architect Vann Molyvann as his private house and architecture office. It has been dubbed as the "Cambodian Taliesin" and praised as a "testimony to the unique ability of Southeast Asia's greatest living architect to fuse European modernism with traditional Khmer design in an apparently seamless style."
Louis Chauchon was a 20th-century French architect who had a significant architectural influence in French Indochina, designing several major landmarks, especially: the Central Market in Phnom Penh, which is still in use today, and the Cathedral of Phnom Penh, which did not survive the violence of the Indochina Wars.
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