Surprise with the puppet play "Truong Ba's Soul, Butcher's Skin"

The new version of the puppet play "Truong Ba's Soul, Butcher's Skin" has a strong contemporary feel. (Photo: Thang Long Puppetry Theatre)

“The Soul of Truong Ba, the Butcher’s Skin” is a famous script by the late author Luu Quang Vu that has been successfully staged in many genres such as drama, cheo, cai luong… With puppetry stage, “The Soul of Truong Ba, the Butcher’s Skin” was also staged by Thang Long Puppetry Theatre in 2016 under the direction of Meritorious Artist Le Chi Kien and made a splash with the Best Experimental Puppetry Performance Award at the 3rd International Experimental Theatre Festival. That said, how to overcome the “shadow” of previous successful works is a big challenge.

However, not hesitating to conquer this challenge, once again, with the support of the Board of Directors of Thang Long Puppetry Theater, Meritorious Artist Le Chi Kien decided to re-stage the puppet play "Truong Ba's Soul, Butcher's Skin" with a new version imbued with a contemporary feel. Having devoted nearly 40 years to the art of puppetry, Meritorious Artist Le Chi Kien, more than anyone else, always understands that puppetry needs to transform to integrate with the times, to get closer to today's audience, especially the youth. And to do this, there is no other way than to make creative efforts to find the "key" to harmonize tradition and modernity.

The show combines traditional art and modern technology. (Photo: Thang Long Puppetry Theatre)

In order to find a solution to the above problem, director, Meritorious Artist Le Chi Kien and his colleagues (script adaptation: Meritorious Artist Dang Tien; stage design: People's Artist Doan Bang; puppet creation: Artist Ngo Thang; choreographer: People's Artist Hong Phong) used the language of today's youth. Notably, not only using human puppets and puppets, the 2025 version also uses shadow puppets to vividly retell the familiar story.

The play begins in the space of a bustling but chaotic market, with the harmonious sound of wooden clogs, sometimes slow and steady, sometimes hurried and hurried, like background music guiding the audience's emotions... Notably, the traditional musical materials used in the play such as Xam, Chau Van, A Dao, Cheo... have been gracefully paired with new musical melodies such as hiphop, rap..., creating a natural glue that attracts young audiences.

Creating vivid and unique puppets. (Photo: Thang Long Puppetry Theatre)

The modernity in stage design is also extremely elaborate to create a multi-layered space - where reality and fantasy intertwine, people and puppets tell stories together. Among them, the design of the yin-yang chessboard contains many profound philosophies. The audience cannot help but be surprised when being led through many continuously changing performances, there are scenes that are ghostly and creepy, there are also lyrical scenes that make the audience cry, and there is no shortage of funny performances that make the audience laugh heartily.

With familiar dialogue and fresh performance, the play still fully conveys the work's philosophy of life, which is that being human is precious, but being true to yourself is even more precious.

The stage is designed with multiple levels, bringing many new experiences to the audience. (Photo: Thang Long Puppetry Theatre)

Watching the play, People's Artist Tran Quoc Chiem, Chairman of the Hanoi Literature and Arts Association, assessed that this was a production that brought many new experiences, smoothly combining modern technology and traditional art, making the theater people themselves impressed.

Evaluating the creative team's skillful handling of combining shadow puppets and humans to lead the audience into the hidden things inside each character, director, People's Artist Ta Tuan Minh also did not hesitate to exclaim: "It's so difficult, but the director still did it!".

Taking on the role of artistic director, Meritorious Artist Thanh Hien, Director of Thang Long Puppetry Theater, said: The staging of the puppet play "Truong Ba's Soul, Butcher's Skin" is part of the Plan to preserve and promote traditional opera art in Hanoi Capital for the period 2021-2025 of the Hanoi People's Committee.

The play will be performed for school theater and will also participate in the International Experimental Theater Festival in October 2025 in Hanoi.