The character Ngao found charming laughter and was loved by the audience.
On the morning of November 23, at the 6th International Experimental Theatre Festival - 2025 taking place in Ninh Binh , the circus play "Clams, oysters, snails and mussels - Even if you don't want to, you have to laugh" directed by People's Artist Tong Toan Thang became a special highlight that is both folk and modern; both humorous and touching on deep thoughts about society.
This is a circus show that is boldly experimental in bringing Vietnamese folk satire into the contemporary circus language, where traditional pieces are renewed with a modern performance technique system and international staging thinking.
Animal circus performers take the stage with professional actors in the play "Clams, oysters, snails, mussels"
When "Clams, Mussels, Snails, and Clams"… step into the air
Still the familiar characters in the folk tale: Clam - Snail - Mussel - Clam, but under the hands of director People's Artist Tong Toan Thang, they "performed" circus tricks, transforming the characters' personalities in flying, sliding, gliding, tumbling, tossing, catching, hanging in mid-air positions in breathtaking circus routines:
The character Oc, because of poverty, had to steal, walk on a wire in the moonlight, staggering like a precarious fate between the law and poverty.
Goat - Animal circus performer participates in the performance with professional artists in the play "Clams, oysters, mussels, snails"
Meanwhile, Ngheu: blind, tricked, captured – with his "groping in the dark" acrobatic movements full of metaphors about the fate of the weak and powerless.
As for the beautiful and resourceful Hen, she transformed herself into a flying and balancing act in the sky, making the audience "hold their breath" watching each drop.
The audience especially loves the character So (Boss So) who is portrayed as stingy and meddlesome, but then suddenly pushed into the abyss of humanity, and from there… bounces back with sympathy.
The climax of laughter comes from powerful figures: District officials, teachers, village chiefs – those who always think they are on high, but through the rounds, juggling power, and unmasking with magic, all become puppets in the play of life. And even their wives get jealous, demonstrating their feminine power to punish their philandering husbands.
The character of the Clam Boss creates a lot of fun in the play "Clams, mussels, snails, and cockles"
Circus is not just a technique, but a social metaphor.
What makes the circus play valuable is the talent of arranging the acts into the story so that the conflict situations are linked to the acts in a very intelligent way. Therefore, the circus play is not only about the technical satisfaction, but also about the way People's Artist Tong Toan Thang uses circus as a language of social expression.
Each circus technique has a layer of meaning: Wire walking: is the image of people living between the boundaries of law - morality - survival; Magic of changing people, untying: a metaphor for the fickleness of power and the hope of resolving injustice; Juggling from above: like a game of power, where the lower person is thrown up, the upper person is pulled down; Collective acrobatics is the resonance of the community - loud laughter is not to mock people, but to free them from the heaviness of fate.
The circus play created charming laughter.
In particular, animal circus acts – geese, pigeons, goats, pigs – are not just for illustration or humor, but become symbols of rural life, of the cycle of survival in ancient feudal villages.
An ending: laugh to reflect
The audience laughed as the title suggests: "Laughing even if you don't want to". But after that laughter, there were also very long silences. The moment when Boss So, who was once a cruel miser, suddenly extended his hand to the poor was staged without noise, without drama, without tears. Just a small gesture - but enough to make the audience silent.
It is no longer a simple fairy tale, but a message: In a chaotic society, kindness, no matter how small, is the last light. The experiment was successful: when circus entered the realm of ideology. With "Nghêu ô hồ", People's Artist Tong Toan Thang proved:
The actors participating in the play "Clams, mussels, snails, and cockles" are loved by the audience.
Watching this circus play, the audience enjoyed performances with professionally rehearsed acts. The play brought to the festival a creative search for circus. This type of theater needs to put ideology into each act. Circus theater also needs social criticism. If placed in a structure with a director who is brave and sophisticated enough, all will find interaction with the public.
In the midst of an international festival that brings together many experimental theatrical trends from different cultures, the circus show has done the most important thing: maintaining Vietnamese identity, but speaking an international language.
Source: https://nld.com.vn/ngheu-so-oc-hen-duoc-ke-bang-nghe-thuat-xiec-tao-tieng-cuoi-trong-khong-gian-thu-nghiem-196251123153124403.htm
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