Finding ways to preserve and develop performing arts

Scene from the excerpt "The Stars Never Go Out" by the Ha Nam Provincial Center for Culture and Arts.

Not only is it an artistic playground for stage artists to exchange and learn from each other, the Festival is also an opportunity for serious professionals to look at and evaluate the appearance of the country's stage, thereby finding ways to preserve and develop it...

The 2023 National Festival of Excerpts and Stage Arts is chaired by the Vietnam Stage Artists Association, in coordination with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the People's Committee of Ha Nam Province. Bringing together 106 typical excerpts from many types of stage (cheo, tuong, cai luong, folk drama, drama, circus), the Festival truly creates a colorful and emotional "feast" of art.

The richness and diversity of historical, traditional, folk and modern themes in the excerpts is vivid evidence of the sense of professional responsibility of more than 1,000 artists from 33 professional art units across the country.

The Festival's Art Council recognized that, although the performances were short, most of the excerpts had a reasonable structure, helping viewers understand the content conveyed, thereby sending meaningful and humane messages about the aspiration to reach good things; condemning evil and meanness and sounding alarm bells about moral and personality degradation and degeneration...

Notable examples include “The Stars That Never Go Out” (Ha Nam Province Cultural and Artistic Center), “The Waves of Hatred of Luc Dau Giang” (Vietnam Tuong Theater), “The Wronged Times” ( Hanoi Cheo Theater), “The Burial of the Clown” (Ninh Binh Cheo Theater), “Cuc Oi” (Vietnam Circus Federation), “White Night” (Vietnam Drama Theater), “Red River” (Tran Huu Trang Opera Theater) - these are excerpts that won the Excellent Award at the Festival when they almost completely met the criteria of staging and acting, content and art.

In particular, with 29 classic excerpts of traditional tuong and cheo art, the creative elements have preserved the principles and core characteristics of each type; preserved the performances and dialogues, and received and promoted the values left by their ancestors with a new rhythm, suitable for the reception of today's young audiences.

54 Gold Medals and 60 Silver Medals awarded to the actors are worthy results recognizing the efforts of the performing artists who shined on stage with "clear, beautiful, mature, refined, energetic, and spirit", creating many levels of emotion for the audience through impressive roles.

Notably, 85/106 excerpts from the Festival are from traditional theater genres. This is a vivid demonstration of the creative aspirations and efforts to preserve the “fire” of the profession of those working in traditional theater arts today.

It was touching that many actors, especially those from non-public agencies, had to invest their own money to be able to produce excerpts for the Festival. The Festival Jury commented: That is the dedication, passion, and responsibility of the artist for his profession.

According to People's Artist Giang Manh Ha, Vice President of the Vietnam Stage Artists Association, this is the stage festival with the largest number of entries ever. The new point of this festival is that in addition to judging the main actors, the Jury also judges the supporting actors participating in the excerpt.

Supporting actors who portray typical characters and show unique personalities will still be awarded medals. This has contributed to increasing the attractiveness of the festival and at the same time, encouraging actors to perform their roles to the best of their ability.

However, besides the bright spots, the festival still revealed limitations that need to be overcome. Assessing the artistic quality of the festival at the closing ceremony, playwright, Dr. Nguyen Dang Chuong, Chairman of the Jury Council frankly said: In theory, all units will bring their best entries; but in reality, some entries are still very amateurish.

Amateurism is shown in the content, structure of the excerpt, artistic method, staging method, performance form and backstage work.

There was a passage with no beginning or end, causing the jury to secretly look at each other and ask what message the passage conveyed, and all seven members had no answer.

Dr. Nguyen Dang Chuong

In addition, there are excerpts about modern topics that the creative team fictionalized to the point of being... offensive. Real life stories were exaggerated, creating unreasonable character images, negatively affecting the aesthetic perception and psychology and emotions of viewers.

Regarding directing, Dr. Nguyen Dang Chuong said that there is still excessive freedom in handling the performances and dialogue in some excerpts on folk and modern themes, leading to the destruction of the excerpt's structure and overshadowing the sparkle of the characters and actors.

The festival has up to six excerpts of “A Matching Couple” adapted from the work “Chi Pheo”, but most of them are similar as if “cast from the same mold”. The three characters in the excerpt are similar from makeup, costumes, props, to the way of expressing emotions, body movements, gait, laughter and handling of stage space…

This is a real demonstration of the erosion, aging, repetition, and past-sucking of the creator, turning the performing artist into a “performer”... that has appeared on stage here and there over the years.

Another “sigh” from the festival is the situation where units rush to perform and then leave immediately because they do not have enough funds to stay. The goal of exchanging and learning experiences between groups is therefore not fulfilled. This is also an “unsolved bottleneck” that has existed for decades at theater festivals.

From the reality at this festival, experts realized the big difference in artistic quality between professional units. Many units are currently in crisis in both quantity and quality of their actors.

According to the Jury, one of the main reasons is that localities have merged and mechanically streamlined art units when rearranging the organizational structure. These are limitations that need to be frankly and substantially recognized in order to promptly remove them in order to preserve traditional theatrical values and continue to accompany the flow of life today.

That requires early adoption of specific policies for traditional stage artists; human resource training policies to fill the gap in creative and performing teams, so that they can confidently make a living from their profession, pursue their passion and contribute.

In addition, there should be a coordinated solution so that localities pay more attention to investing funds for units to build works, travel, and accommodation when participating in national professional art competitions. Only then will theater festivals truly be professional festivals in the true sense, bringing positive effects in promoting the quality of artistic creation.

According to Nhan Dan

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