Investing in children's theater will promote the development of the country's theater industry.

The stage and the audience go hand in hand.

Speaking at the opening of the discussion, People's Artist Nguyen Hoang Tuan, Chairman of the Hanoi Theater Association, said that the stage and the audience are an indispensable pair in any situation. The stage seeks the audience, the audience seeks the stage. Sometimes the audience is also an involuntary actor and participates in the story on stage as an improvisation brought by the artists.

And the clearest evidence that still exists today in the traditional theater forms is; “the voice of the emperor” or “the stage of the emperor”. The uniqueness of the voice of the emperor and the stage of the emperor is the interaction between the audience and the artist and vice versa. Without the audience, there is no stage and of course without the stage, there is no audience.

People's Artist Nguyen Hoang Tuan, Chairman of Hanoi Theater Association, delivered the opening speech and introduced the discussion.

According to People's Artist Hoang Tuan, the entertainment value of early theater was always considered the most important. At that time, theater was still new, so as long as there was a performance, everyone would come to watch. After tiring days, they craved a laugh, and what could be more interesting than when they came to watch a performance and saw their own image in it. Therefore, theater reflected all the lives of generations from young to old and then returned to serve life.

“Along with the process of social development, the stage has also been raised to a new level, the stage has been professionalized. Performing arts is considered a profession, performers are called artists and from there art troupes and theaters were born, each troupe and theater will have its own artistic characteristics. Thus, the audience has the right to choose the art form they love, which means that if we want to survive, we just need to keep our art form, if we want to develop, we need to adapt to the needs of the times”, the Chairman of the Hanoi Theater Association emphasized.

People's Artist Hoang Tuan added that each type of theater with children's themes will have different advantages and of course will have different colors. Drama will bring children to the most realistic, vivid, and fresh world . Cai Luong opera will take children to the world of magical fairy tales with fairies and magical wishes... Therefore, to thoroughly implement the strategy of preserving and developing theater in the long term and sustainably, investing in theater with children's themes is the work of developing from the root of the country's theater industry.

Presenting a speech at the seminar, Meritorious Artist Cao Ngoc Anh, Deputy Director of the Vietnam Youth Theatre, said that the Youth Theatre is always proud of its achievements in creating a stage space - where stories are told in an extremely rich and attractive artistic language for young audiences as a mission and motto.

Meritorious Artist Cao Ngoc Anh, Deputy Director of Youth Theater, presented a speech.

In the orientation of medium and long-term development strategy, Tuoi Tre Theater is determined to build a cultural destination of great stature and scale, a large stage center for young people in Vietnam and reaching the regional level, a close companion to many generations in a Vietnamese family, the beautiful childhood of parents is associated with the Tuoi Tre Theater stage and then they grow up and mature with their children to the theater, which is a valuable reward that the audience has given to the artists. Therefore, the theater is a bridge that contributes to helping the young generation of Vietnam integrate with the world, worthy of being a dynamic, youthful and typical National Theater for the youth.

“For a long time, the issue of scripts for children has been relatively difficult because there are few authors writing for children. For many years, the Theater has had to research and apply. Recently, the Theater Artists Association launched a script writing contest for children and helped us find some suitable scripts. The Theater has even promptly included them in the staging plan for 2024. This first festival is a continuation of that good idea, at the same time opening up theatrical activities for children on a larger scale, suitable for the development stage of the performing industry,” Meritorious Artist Cao Ngoc Anh shared.

View of the discussion.

In addition to the script, the creative team such as screenwriters, directors, musicians, choreographers, art designers, sound and light designers are always learning and constantly updating new elements, modern civilization in the world, harmoniously applying them to plays for children to increase their appeal. At the same time, promote comprehensive communication before the performance or upcoming plays and programs on Fanpage, FB, Website, Tiktok (even creating separate Fanpages for each play so that the audience does not get confused about each program).

“In addition, building a model of “Staging Literary Works” specifically for teenagers and children through this activity helps them to directly interact with experts and favorite artists, while helping students apply literary knowledge into practice, bringing literature closer to life, helping to improve the effectiveness of creativeeducation , developing thinking ability, aiming to concretize teaching and learning methods in a more effective way”, Meritorious Artist Cao Ngoc Anh added.

The stage is currently lacking good scripts.

As the head of the Hanoi Drama Theater, People's Artist Trung Hieu said that currently, drama stages are facing a difficult problem of a shortage of good scripts. Staged theatrical works are often inspired by foreign characters or plots. This is easy to explain, because today, children are exposed to entertainment and media channels early through many convenient electronic devices. Specifically, children go online to watch foreign movie and entertainment channels. And the younger generation is more attracted to and loves foreign entertainment products.

Understanding the psychology and tastes of young audiences, art units have a choice of content and inspiration for children's art works that are related to literature, entertainment, and foreign content and characters. Many children love foreign characters and know foreign fairy tales, rather than stories and plays with Vietnamese cultural content. That is something worth thinking about and finding a solution.

People's Artist Trung Hieu, Director of Hanoi Drama Theater presented a speech.

Assessing the uneven quality of stage productions for children, People's Artist Trung Hieu said that traditional art works with Vietnamese cultural content and color are also a "book", a connecting bridge to help the younger generations of Vietnam understand more about Hanoi, about the beloved Fatherland. From art programs with traditional cultural colors and content, the younger generation will love and appreciate the cultural values ​​of the country more.

According to People's Artist Trung Hieu, current theatrical works focus more on entertainment and popularization for children than on cultural and educational factors. The lessons embedded in the works are still forced and impractical. This leads to the fact that going to the theater to enjoy theatrical works by children today has not yet fully promoted the effect and important role in educating and orienting personality, patriotism and understanding of national culture.

“Currently, there are not many art units with a fixed weekly (or monthly) performance schedule for children. The opportunity for young Vietnamese audiences to access many types of art stages is not high and is mainly concentrated in big cities. Families, schools and organizations often only organize and take their children to the theater to enjoy art stages on occasions for children (Children's Day or Mid-Autumn Festival), so children also have few opportunities to actively choose the stage. Therefore, bringing art teaching and education into schools as soon as possible will create favorable conditions and resources for the development of our country's art", People's Artist Trung Hieu emphasized.

A scene from the children's play "The King Without a Throne" by the Youth Theater. Photo: NHTT

Therefore, children need to make continuous efforts to build, preserve, maintain and develop the Traditional Stage with a system of works imbued with national identity and culture. And today's young audience generations need to be cared for and invested in to become people who know how to enjoy, love and be passionate about art. That is the beautiful destination we need to aim for.

Throughout the discussion, People's Artists, Meritorious Artists, and invited guests presented their views and discussed ways to help children and teenagers come to the stage more; and at the same time, proposed solutions to solve the problem of thirst for good scripts on stage in Vietnam.

Article and photos: Trung Nguyen

Source: https://www.congluan.vn/nghe-si-gop-tieng-noi-de-phat-trien-san-khau-danh-cho-thieu-nien-nhi-dong-post296208.html