Vietnamese Theatre Heritage: The Soul That Needs to Be Preserved

People's Artist Le Thuy left an impression on the public with her role as Nguyet in the play To Anh Nguyet, a play that Mr. Tran Ngoc Giau considered a classic tragedy of reformed opera - Screenshot: LINH DOAN

People's Artist Giang Manh Ha - Vice President of Vietnam Stage Artists Association said that we have had a stage industry for more than 1,000 years.

It is necessary to preserve a heritage of more than a thousand years.

Mr. Manh Ha said that according to research on the history of Vietnamese theater, many people agree that since the time of King Dinh Tien Hoang more than 1,000 years ago, we had the art of Cheo with U Ba Pham Thi Tran considered the founder of Cheo singing.

During the pre-Le Dynasty, during the Tran Dynasty, fighting with the Yuan army, we captured the actor Ly Nguyen Cat and kept him, gradually forming the art of Tuong (hat boi).

With the process from North to South, there is cultural exchange, we have more diverse and rich theater such as reformed theater, drama, Hue royal court, folk song bai choi, Du Ke Nam Bo theater, Chinese Trieu Chau theater,...

Mr. Ha believes that with such a long history, the theater deserves to be considered a heritage and needs to be preserved and passed down.

People's Artist Tran Ngoc Giau - Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Theater Association shared that currently people often ask for innovation in reformed opera, opera,... to keep up with the times. However, "wanting innovation but sometimes we don't know clearly what the old is, just calling for innovation, innovation all the time is very dangerous, there is no solid foundation".

Mr. Giau believes that preserving and storing images, films, and documents about theater through the stages is extremely necessary so that we can have an overview and know what to do to preserve and promote the art of theater, especially traditional Vietnamese theater.

Photo of artists Le Thuy and Minh Phung winning the Kim Khanh award in 1972 - Photo: DINH TRI

People's Artist Trieu Trung Kien - Director of Vietnam Cai Luong Theater and Director Le Nguyen Dat - Chairman of the Board of Directors of Ho Chi Minh City University of Theater and Cinema, both believe that storing and preserving theatrical documents and heritages is extremely useful in training art students.

According to Mr. Nguyen Dat, to serve the teaching work in the Department of Traditional Drama, he also had to search for documents himself, but there were not many reliable documents.

Mr. Kien also added that recently his theater planned to prepare to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Vietnam Opera House, but there were very few documents left within the theater, and searching for more outside was quite confusing.

The play "Durian Leaves" by Kim Cuong Drama Troupe is considered a classic play of Southern drama - Screenshot: LINH DOAN

We keep saying we are preserving cultural heritage but in reality we have no specific strategy. We just pour money into putting on plays, and sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. The city should have a common research center for all types of theater.

Mr. TRAN NGOC GIAU (Chairman of Ho Chi Minh City Theater Association)

To prevent the stage from developing unsteadily

From identifying the importance of Vietnamese theatrical heritage, many experts have raised the issue of the need for a research institute, even a Vietnam Theatre Museum, to preserve the precious values of Vietnamese theatrical art.

Mr. Kien said that in the old days, around 1950, 1960, we had research committees on reformed opera, tuong, cheo (under the Ministry of Culture), but he regretted that now we can no longer maintain research committees specializing in such genres. The remaining films and plays are very useful for today.

Ms. Ca Le Hong - former Principal of the School of Stage Arts II (now the University of Theatre and Cinema, Ho Chi Minh City) - was an artist of the famous Southern Opera Troupe (the predecessor of the Vietnam Opera Theatre and Tran Huu Trang Opera Theatre) and was very fond of the opera research committee at that time.

She said that the Cai Luong Research Committee, part of the Southern Cai Luong Group, brings together many talented authors, directors, musicians, painters, etc., such as Pham Ngoc Truyen, Chi Lang, Luong Dong, Thanh Nha, Hoang Tuyen, Dac Nhan, Tam Danh, Ba Du, Ngoc Thoi, etc.

"I think this is an extremely good and effective model. Back then, teachers and seniors invested in research and continuously came up with new experiments for the Southern Opera Troupe to apply. Therefore, the troupe developed very vigorously with breakthrough plays," Ms. Hong commented.

Ngao So Oc Hen, one of the rare cai luong plays representing the comedy cai luong genre - Screenshot: LINH DOAN

Mr. Tran Ngoc Giau said that in the past, Ho Chi Minh City also had a Center for Research on Cai Luong Theater with Mr. Truong Binh Tong, Ms. Ca Le Hong, Mr. Van Luyen, musician Vuy Cho, journalist Nguyen Chuong,... operating for several years, but due to gradual mergers, the center stopped operating and all documents were lost.

Mr. Giau expressed: "We keep saying that we preserve cultural heritage but in fact there is no specific strategy. We just pour money into staging plays, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The city should have a common research center for all types of theater because types such as hat boi, cai luong, drama,... of the South have their own characteristics compared to the North.

It is very necessary to systematically store documents, with a summary assessment of each stage to guide development. If the city does not establish this center, and does not calculate properly, the theater will develop very precariously, very worryingly."

Mr. Le Nguyen Dat emphasized: "There needs to be a big policy to let people search for valuable documents in folklore and gather them. I think if we do well, we can introduce it as a tourist destination, introduce it to tourists and friends around the world"./.

Audiences are still fascinated by old plays and operas.

40 years have passed but the play "The Life of Miss Luu" still lives forever in the hearts of the audience - Screenshot: LINH DOAN

In Ho Chi Minh City, there is currently a channel called HTVC Thuan Viet that spends a lot of time broadcasting stage plays. At 12:00 from Monday to Saturday, the channel is dedicated to broadcasting stage plays (rebroadcast at 15:00 from Monday to Sunday).

The 10am time slot every Saturday is dedicated to broadcasting old plays and operas. If the play is long, the station will divide it into two episodes, airing on Friday and Saturday (rebroadcast at 3pm the following Monday).

Editor Cam Linh, in charge of the program, said: "Ho Chi Minh City Television has the advantage of being established very early, so it is the place to store many old cai luong and drama plays compared to other stations.

The theater currently owns hundreds of classic and valuable cai luong and drama plays. Some of them include Under Two Shirts, The Durian Leaf, The Life of Miss Luu, To Anh Nguyet, Ngao So Oc Hen, Tania, Queen Mother Duong Van Nga (the version with both artists Bach Tuyet and Ngoc Giau playing the role of Queen Mother Duong Van Nga),...

There are many plays recorded during the period when the stage was booming with names like Tu Le, Thanh Loc, Minh Trang, Quoc Thao, Kim Xuan, Hong Van, Hong Dao, Minh Hai, Viet Anh, Mai Phuong, Thanh Hoi, Ai Nhu, Minh Hanh, Quyen Linh,... along with plays that many audiences remember such as I'm waiting for the director, Nightingale Nightingale, Girl sitting on the broken tree root, Jute rope, Ironic fate, Thunderstorm, Sun shine,...".

In those days, the station invited artists to the station's studio to record the play, or they could also record right at the theater.

Cam Linh said she was surprised that plays from 40 or 50 years ago had such good viewership. They even sent letters to the station asking to air this or that play.

"Audiences shared that there are plays that they almost know by heart but still want to watch again because they are fascinated by the actors' performances. As for cai luong artists, they want to hear voices that are immediately recognizable and unmistakable. For example, recently when People's Artist Diep Lang passed away, we rebroadcast the play Doi Co Luu. Many viewers expressed that they were extremely moved" - Cam Linh confided.

The spontaneous "collectors"

Cai luong tapes and discs that singer Dinh Tri painstakingly collected - Photo: DINH TRI

Although there is not yet a national or city-level center for research on theater genres, because theater, especially reformed theater, has so many passionate audiences, they have become archivists and collectors for this genre.

As social networks developed, many fans established pages such as Love for reformed opera, FC for old reformed opera or FC for reformed opera artists, and pages that specifically listed the names of artists such as artists Le Thuy, Minh Vuong, Vu Linh, Ngoc Huyen, Thoai My, Vu Linh - Tai Linh, and even a group of friends established a page for Reformed Opera number...

On these sites, fans surprisingly find valuable material, from photos to old film footage.

Vietnamese Theatre Heritage: The Soul That Needs to Be Preserved

Cai luong CDs and DVDs collected by singer Dinh Tri - Photo: DINH TRI

Singer Dinh Tri, son of artist Le Thuy, is famous in the industry for owning a very valuable collection of old documents about Cai Luong. Initially, his grandmother trusted him with all the documents, images, and newspapers written about his mother. Then when he started writing a memoir for his mother to publish online, he searched for more documents to supplement it. So Tri became a "collector" without realizing it.

Dinh Tri said the more he searched, the more fascinated he became because there were many interesting and valuable documents. Not only documents related to Le Thuy's mother, but Tri also collected very vivid images of other artists and through that, he vaguely saw the shadow of a brilliant period of Cai Luong.

He collects a lot of records, from vinyl records to cassettes, videos, CDs, DVDs,... through different periods, from the 1960s to the 1990s, troupe posters from the 1970s and later; press materials from the 1970s to the present,...

Linh Doan (According to Tuoi Tre)

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