1st Ho Chi Minh City Theatre Festival

A successful performance requires continuous performances; that is the most precious reward the audience can bestow upon the artist.

The 1st Ho Chi Minh City Theatre Festival 2024 (from November 12 to 29) attracted a large number of artists from 20 public and private organizations, presenting 24 plays.

"Southern Aspiration"

According to the Organizing Committee, naming the festival "Southern Aspirations" aims to foster creativity, meet the needs of today's audience, provide opportunities for young artists to express themselves, and allow theater troupes in Ho Chi Minh City to establish their brand.

A scene from the play "The Monkey's Howl" directed by Chánh Trực, Ho Chi Minh City Small Stage Theatre.

A new feature of the festival is that the organizers bring the judges to each stage, allowing them to sit and watch alongside the audience. This way, the judges can feel the pulse of life and appreciate the value of the performance that the audience paid for tickets to see. This is completely different from watching plays through invitations.

It's a little regrettable that the planned invitation to Northern art troupes ultimately had to be postponed due to various objective reasons. People's Artist Nguyen Xuan Bac, Director of the Department of Performing Arts, shared: "Right from the opening night, we saw the enthusiastic atmosphere from both public and private organizations. This confirms the strong vitality of the theater scene in Ho Chi Minh City, and we hope that the festival will bring many pleasant surprises to the public."

According to People's Artist Kim Cương, "the theatrical arts space in Ho Chi Minh City remains the most vibrant in the country." The theatrical style of Southern Vietnam in general, and Ho Chi Minh City in particular, always has many shades and an overall picture that changes according to public demand.

People's Artist Tran Ngoc Giau, Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Theater Association, said that many positive signs have been observed from the festival. For example, some units that have long focused on entertainment have adjusted and enhanced the ideological content and themes, delving into the depth of the humanistic life and soul of the people and the land of Southern Vietnam, with humanistic and compassionate values ​​as the main theme. And these plays have captivated the audience.

Separating the wheat from the chaff.

Of the 24 plays from 20 participating troupes, more than two-thirds are products of privately-run theaters, so most chose plays to compete in a way that caters to the audience's desire to enjoy the performance through ticket sales. People's Artist Tran Minh Ngoc, Chairman of the Artistic Council, believes that this is a characteristic of Ho Chi Minh City's spoken theater, where even though tickets are sold, the performances still adhere to the festival's criteria.

Audiences enthusiastically cheered for plays such as: "General Le Van Duyet - The Man Who Carried Nine Death Sentences", "Mom, Ut is Coming Home" (IDECAF Theatre), "Sweet Strawberry", "Me Coc Adventure" (Truong Hung Minh Art Theatre), "The Last Delirium" (Hoang Thai Thanh Theatre), "Crane Wings", "Broken Thread" (Hong Van Theatre), "The Night of the Monkey's Howl" (Ho Chi Minh City Small Stage Theatre), "Mistake in Remembering and Loving" (Saigon Flat Theatre)... Plays with revolutionary themes such as: "Comrade" (Ho Chi Minh City Theatre Association), "That Day at the Gate of Heaven" (Trinh Kim Chi Theatre), "The Fiery Field" (Quoc Thao Theatre) also had limited tickets due to the large number of viewers.

Regarding the three plays that required a second round of review – "Iron Flower" (Ho Chi Minh City College of Culture and Arts), "The Female General of the Coconut Forest" (Southeast Asian Cultural and Arts Research Center), and "Showbiz" (Sao Minh Beo Entertainment Arts Company Limited) – Meritorious Artist Ca Le Hong commented that all three plays were weak in terms of staging, had somewhat rambling content, and lacked clearly defined character portrayals. Even after the review, many aspects remained unsatisfactory.

Insiders believe that low-quality plays should be frankly eliminated. Artistic evaluation needs to be more rigorous to separate the good from the bad, identifying only high-quality performances to compete at the festival.

Public opinion suggests that the Ho Chi Minh City Theater Festival urgently needs its own unique approach to avoid falling into the same trap as many other festivals, which shower awards with medals only to later have plays shelved and left unappreciated by the public.

Experts say that a successful performance requires continuous performances, and this festival is achieving that.

"Meritorious Artist Minh Nhi said that he had previously won a gold medal at the National Theatre Festival, but even if he didn't win a medal this time, he would still be happy because the theatre festival must be a fair place, where the aspiration for artistic creation is directed towards the public."

Source: https://nld.com.vn/lien-hoan-san-khau-tp-hcm-lan-1-2024-vo-dien-hay-la-phai-sang-den-19624112020144543.htm