/ARTS WEEKLY/VIETNAM: Classical Drama Wants New, Younger Audience

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Tran Dinh Thanh Lam

DANANG, Vietnam, Nov 26 2002 (IPS) - ‘Tuong’ or Vietnamese classical drama is slowly fading from the popular imagination in today’s pop music era, but local artists are trying to revive the centuries-old tradition and are leaving an impression on young audiences.

In recent times modern forms of entertainment – television, cinema, pop music and fashion shows – have deflected the public’s attention from ‘Roi’ (water puppetry), ‘Ca Tru’ (traditional female singing), ‘Cheo’ (folk opera) and performing arts that have been the centre of popular Vietnamese song and dance for generations.

‘Tuong’ – one of whose cradles is the central port city of Danang – dates back to the 12th century. It was not until the 17th century that it was very much in vogue.

Initially it was performed for the royal family and the royal court, but by the 19th century it had become ”socialised” – taking on a wide popular appeal up until some three decades ago.

”At that time the people outnumbered the seats in the ‘Tuong’ theatre, so many of us had to stand to see, but all of us felt moved by any small dramatic detail in the play,” 72-year-old Dang Van recalled of a performance he attended 30 years ago.

”The theatre is now better equipped, with more lights and more seats, but today only half of the seats are occupied,” said Van after attending a free performance by a ‘Tuong’ troupe in Danang, on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City.

Nguyen Xuan Nhi, head of the Danang Service of Culture and Information, agrees. ”Today, old people and foreigners account for the majority of the ‘Tuong’ audience, as young people never attend.”

Young audiences are more able to relate to pop music, while ‘Tuong’ is a total stranger to them due to its highly stylised format, imbued with conventions and symbolism attached to characters and their make-up and gestures, costumes, colours.

“Attending a ‘Tuong’ performance without knowing the tale, the meaning of the gestures and the facial expressions of the artists is like a blind a person attending a pantomime,” Van said.

To keep ‘Tuong’ going, “high school and college students are provided with a basic understanding of traditional tales, symbolic gestures and facial expressions,” said Nhi.

”They are also invited to assist some ‘Tuong’ excerpts played by the local Nguyen Hien Dinh troupe,” Nhi added.

In September, the 20-member troupe was offered a permanent venue to perform and has since attracted more than 40,000 spectators to the Nguyen Hien Dinh Theatre.

But the authorities in Danang are not alone in bringing ‘Tuong’ to a modern audience. The Central Tuong Theatre in the capital Hanoi has also organised free weekly performances and other theatre troupes in Thanh Hoa, Hue, Danang and Binh Dinh central provinces, and Ho Chi Minh City, are following suit.

“We will try our best to continue putting one show every Saturday night,” Nguyen Thi Nhung, vice director of the Central Tuong Theatre said. “The screenplays will cover not only ancient Chinese and Vietnamese tales, but also themes from contemporary history, revolutionary traditions and modern life.”

Some troupes are pushing forward in another direction by adapting European plays to the ‘Tuong’ stage.

The Dao Tan Tuong Theatre in the central province of Binh Dinh – one of the most popular and oldest troupes in Vietnam – has successfully adapted the 17th century story ‘Le Cid’ by French playwright Corneille.

To huge critical acclaim, the troupe performed ‘Lo Dich’ – the ‘Tuong’ version of ‘Le Cid’ – at a Vietnamese Cultural Week organised in September in Germany. The work was adapted in the 1910s by a prince from Hue, in central Vietnam.

”Staging ‘Le Cid’ for the Tuong Theatre is not easily done. The playwright must adapt French characters to the Vietnamese environment and solve (dramatic performance) problems typical in French classical plays,” said Dr Tran Van Khue, a French expert of Vietnamese traditional arts.

Not to be outdone, in November the Central Tuong Theatre staged a ‘Tuong’ version of William Shakespeare’s play ‘Othello’ at the opening of the Hanoi 1st International Festival of Experimental Theatre.

Shakespeare’s ‘Othello’ – the ‘Tuong’ version adapted by Kinh Dan, a national playwright known for his innovation – is a tragedy about Othello’s struggles as a black man in a white world. This represents the ambiguity and complexity of life, which Dan believes Vietnamese audiences can relate to.

“Our society is experiencing several crises, including the confusion between black and white, real and unreal. This makes a ‘Tuong’ version of ‘Othello’ more than suitable for Vietnamese audiences today,” Dan said.

Performed by four artists from the Central Tuong Theatre, complete with symbolic gestures on a simple stage denuded of settings typical of traditional ‘Tuong’, Shakespeare’s drama has been winning over Vietnamese audiences with aplomb.

“The tragic-comedy and tragic-epic atmosphere of ‘Tuong’ makes it perfectly suitable to translate the violent sentiments and furious miseries habitually found in Shakespeare’s plays,” said the play’s director Xuan Huyen.

Xuan Huyen staged a version of ‘Othello’ in 1983, but this time he is more confident of its success. “I strongly believe that ‘Othello’ adapted to the ‘Tuong’ theatre will conquer the public, including the young ones,” he said. (END/IPS/AP/AE/CR/TDTL/AAG/JS/02)