Alarm about the quality of theater festivals

The 2024 National Drama Festival - chaired by the Department of Performing Arts, in coordination with the Vietnam Stage Artists Association, the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Thai Nguyen province, and the Viet Bac Folk Music and Dance Theater - just ended on June 26 in Thai Nguyen city, Thai Nguyen province.

Attracting an audience

Chairman of the Art Council, People's Artist Tran Ngoc Giau believes that the greatest success of the 2024 National Drama Festival is the audience. The Viet Bac Folk Music and Dance Theater (Thai Nguyen City, Thai Nguyen Province) was almost packed with audiences during the festival. The notice board with no seats was often hung in front of the theater door. The image of the audience having to watch the play on the screen in front of the theater and the applause helped make the festival more lively.

Scene from the play “Two Mothers” by Trinh Kim Chi Stage (HCMC) - the play awarded a silver medal at the 2024 National Drama Festival. (Photo: TRINH KIM CHI STAGE)

Another highlight of this festival is the presence of many older artists who are still passionate and dedicated to the stage. There have been plays that have made the audience's emotions explode, such as "White Night" (Vietnam Drama Theater), "Unfaithful Circle" (Hanoi Drama Theater), "Ghost Catcher" (Hai Phong Drama Troupe)...

Still many concerns

However, the festival still has many issues that need to be "dissected", from the script to the form of staging. The festival brings together nearly 1,000 artists and actors from 19 professional art units inside and outside the public, but public opinion raises the question of why the drama festival allows cai luong actors to participate? Is this laxity intended to allow actors in any field to "hunt" for medals in the title review process?

The purpose of the festival is to discover and honor collectives and individuals with achievements in the process of working and creating dramatic art; to be an opportunity for dramatic art units to train the next generation of artists and actors; to be an opportunity for artists and actors to exchange, learn experiences, cultivate knowledge, improve professional qualifications and the quality of dramatic art performances to serve the people. However, the investment and preparation process for the plays is neglected, resulting in too few new scripts, almost no scripts about contemporary life.

Insiders believe that the theater is lacking in real life and burning social issues. Is this situation due to a lack of creative teams, or the creative team avoiding contemporary issues? The theater is gradually losing its function of reflecting reality and making predictions.

Despite the national scale of the festival, most of the scripts participating in the festival are too old, some were written in the 1980s, none came from scriptwriting camps, and scripts by young authors are even more scarce; few scripts exploit hot issues of today's society; there is a lack of creativity in the stage design of some plays; many plays have not focused on investing in the musical element in the play...

Experts expect state management agencies from central to local levels to promptly assess the current state of drama activities, promptly propose new methods of operation, solutions to overcome existing problems, and promote the development of drama in accordance with the reality of social life.

Source: https://nld.com.vn/bao-dong-ve-chat-luong-cua-lien-hoan-san-khau-196240628202436079.htm