Meritorious Artist THANH LOC: Thien Dang aims for "a decent art"

Seeing the birth of Thien Dang Stage as the start of a career for an artist over 60 years old, Meritorious Artist Thanh Loc is still as enthusiastic as a young man who just turned 20.

"Launching Thien Dang Stage is beneficial for the public, and for us artists, there is a place to practice our profession. The younger generation is following this path more and more, but there are few stages, so the fact that Thien Dang was born makes me happy, because I have a place to practice my profession according to my wishes and interests" - Meritorious Artist Thanh Loc confided.

Reporter: It is known that the purely Vietnamese musical "Giang Huong - Late Night Stage" has sold out all 10 shows since Thien Dang Stage officially opened to the public. As the artistic director of the unit considered the "youngest" of the Ho Chi Minh City theater industry, do you feel less worried?

Meritorious Artist Thanh Loc

- Meritorious Artist THANH LOC: At my age, calling it a start-up sounds funny, but the artistic path of anyone is the same, it never has limits if the artist is always passionate about his or her artistic work.

In a city of over 10 million people, it is unusual to have only a few lit stages. While 30 years ago, there were over 20 art units operating at the same time. Drama stages are now all private, while reformed opera mainly performs events. However, I did not stop at the first two plays of Thien Dang, "Giang Huong - Late Night Stage" and "Alo, Lo Hang", but have now put on the rehearsal stage the third play, and the fourth play is in the planning stage.

The number of people following and expecting Thien Dang's new play is around 4,000, and each performance only serves 300 guests, so we believe that the number of audiences supporting Thien Dang is still large. The fact that I put all my efforts into the play "Giang Huong - Late Night Stage" is an invitation, an "advertisement" to present a direction, not daring to say a declaration that from now on Thien Dang will follow an artistic style towards works that reach a certain level of literature, art, screenwriting, fine arts, and staging style that we aim for, as I mentioned on the opening night with the phrase "for a decent art".

Meritorious Artist Thanh Loc and actress Le Khanh in the musical "Giang Huong - Late Night Theater" on Thien Dang Stage. (Photo: THANH HIEP)

In life, sometimes we have compromised with not-so-nice things to survive, to maintain. However, I think that artists who love their profession always want to aim for perfection, not for others but for themselves. So "Giang Huong - Late Night Stage" is like a message to spread positive energy to the public, so that the public believes that we want that.

Looking back at his 26 years with IDECAF Stage, he directed the plays: "The Secret of Le Chi Garden", "The Ghost of the Theater", "A Thousand Years of Love", "Believe in Roses", "The Poppy House", "Fairy"... Among them, the play "Fairy" through 5 re-performances with 69 performances is considered the peak of his directing career. Do you think you will perform a work on Thien Dang Stage that surpasses the success of "Fairy"?

- The scope of "Tien Nga" is different, it is a historical play with an epic stature, a story about patriotism. Meanwhile, "Giang Huong - Late Night Theater" is a story about love of art, the scope of an artist's love of art is different from the scope of patriotism. The two stories are different and the performance locations are also different, with one side being the Ben Thanh Theater with over 1,000 seats, and the other side having only 300 seats. The problem is that we don't do it differently from our own staging style.

When deciding on the script "Giang Huong - Late Night Theater", what was the first thing you thought of?

- That is the conventional and descriptive nature. After the Board of Directors of Thien Dang Company chose 62 Tran Quang Khai as the performance venue, we decided that the staging style of the plays must follow the conventional style and not the realistic style because of the stage area. Or to be more precise, the plays must be more general and, to put it simply, follow the romantic style of Europe.

Even if we stage a comedy or historical play, it must be suitable for the space of Thien Dang Drama Stage, we cannot do it in the old style. I think that is also a good way because it will form a different style of watching plays when coming to Thien Dang Theater, which has a staging style that is not mixed with any other stage.

What path did you follow to form a new message in the editing of the script "Night Stage" by People's Artist Nguyen Thanh Chau?

- When I held the script in my hand, I was surprised to know that the original script was a drama, not a reformed opera. He had the idea to write it since the 1940s, the original name was "In the shadow behind the stage", perhaps here and there, the elderly audience knows that the old reformed opera writers all studied in Western schools, their level of knowledge was very high, most of the scripts they wrote were more or less influenced by French literature. I liked the original script very much, then read the reformed opera script that he also adapted and discovered something interesting, that is, the story did not take place in a reformed opera troupe but in a theater troupe, he chose reformed opera as the language of expression.

Therefore, the script has a lot of material for me to renew. When a literary script is written in a certain era, it will have the practicality of that era. Sometimes there are viewpoints on life and world views that are only valid at a certain time. For example, when the character Giang Huong talks about the relationship between artists and the public, I, as an artist in 2023, find it no longer suitable. I discussed with director Hong Dung - the daughter of People's Artist Nguyen Thanh Chau - about my viewpoint, to edit and change that viewpoint to match the way of thinking about the value of artists in the new era.

Does the play carry any valuable message that personally touched you? Why did you choose the musical style?

- The national spirit in the story shows the great responsibility of People's Artist Nguyen Thanh Chau to the country, that is, Giang Huong aspires to play the role of Princess Huyen Tran - a role in a Vietnamese historical work. And a detail that is not in the original script is the line: "Right now, I can only be Huyen Tran, not Chieu Quan". I want to show the responsibility of a citizen artist right at this stage. As for choosing musicals, it is because I like them. Thien Dang Stage has officially invited the ITS group (Impact Theatre Saigon) to participate in the performance. They are young people who all graduated from the conservatory, have a great love for Broadway-style musicals. There are currently 2 shows on October 13 and 14, introducing musical excerpts, spreading to audiences who love Broadway musicals.

Does Thien Dang Stage plan to collaborate with IDECAF Stage to stage plays for children under the brand name "Once upon a time"? Will you re-stage the plays that you directed?

- Thien Dang Theater has no intention of doing children's plays. If we do, the style will be completely different from "Once upon a time", because we don't want to be seen as competing.

Currently, Thien Dang only stages new plays and when I have the idea to re-create an old play, the staged version will be very different. However, my criteria is that the play has few characters. I do not like to make plays with too many characters. Or more accurately, to go into experimentation, limit staging of social plays, although it is picky about the audience, it will increase the public's need to enjoy. We aim for the public to understand the art.

Training young actors is the direction that Thien Dang is aiming for, but not now. As for the source of scripts, once the staging style is determined, the audience will be formed, from which Thien Dang's strategy must be to complete the work according to the creative trend. I will open the door to invite directors to collaborate, as long as they do not deviate from the artistic criteria that Thien Dang has set.

Source: https://nld.com.vn/van-nghe/nsut-thanh-loc-thien-dang-huong-den-mot-nen-nghe-thuat-tu-te-2023093020260926.htm