Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, the theater scene was already in a crisis of audience shortage, and the problem is even more severe at the present stage.
The puppet show introduced the unique features of Vietnamese theater. (Photo: Minh Giang)
The theater is no longer the "cathedral" of art that attracts the public as it was in its golden age not too long ago. After three years of the pandemic, the socio-economic situation has faced many difficulties, and the theater has faced even more difficulties. The lack of audiences has led to low ticket sales, significantly affecting the lives of artists and actors. While public theaters have a certain stability in terms of salaries and theater facilities, socialized units, especially in the South, are really in a difficult situation, having to merge, suspend operations, or even disband due to limited or non-existent investment and revenue sources, high theater rental prices, fewer and fewer audiences, and it is impossible to rely on seasonal performances forever. Besides economic factors, one of the reasons why audiences are not interested in going to the theater and the theater is no longer as attractive as before is the competition between multimedia entertainment forms and the encroachment of media and television. Faced with this situation, the theater itself is not really attractive and has not innovated or diversified its promotional forms to attract the public. Many theaters for specialized theater are now degraded and must combine entertainment, music, and film services to survive, becoming a sadness for those in the profession. Difficulties have made it impossible for many talented playwrights, directors, and artists to focus on their works and performances, and have to combine or move to other artistic fields. Meanwhile, many units that try to stage plays to attract audiences have fallen into a state of declining quality of plays, with too many entertaining plays that make the public feel bored and not go to the theater, significantly affecting units that stage serious, artistic plays. That is also part of the reason why many plays are highly appreciated by the profession, but after their debut, they can only be performed for a few shows before being "shelved", causing waste. Another current situation is that there are units and individual artists who follow technological trends, often posting on social networks or through technology platforms to introduce their plays or performances. Although the good side is fast promotion and wide dissemination, it also partly contributes to creating the habit of laziness in going to the theater for the public because enjoying a stage performance in such an indirect way cannot encompass, feel the beauty of the play and the emotional space like going to the theater. The above situation raises many issues that theater workers need to solve in order to gradually bring theater activities back to the right and sustainable development path. Theaters still have audiences and many people love and admire them, but what is needed is what to do to make them come back in larger numbers, so that the stages can be "red-lit" regularly. In the competition to attract the public, art forms and multimedia entertainment have the strength to quickly convey information and current issues, closely following life, but theater has the advantage of not only reflecting and raising the surface but also addressing social and national issues in depth, with forecasting and solutions, highlighting the message conveyed and the ideology through the synthesis of many art forms. Theater brings deep emotions, helps the audience enhance their aesthetic perception, and strengthens their belief in life. According to director Le Quy Duong, to do this, theater must create a mark and a creative style, with dialogue and criticism from life, touching the hidden corners of society and each person, and at the same time must be highly predictive. The fact that many plays by author Luu Quang Vu that were written decades ago and classic plays by foreign authors hundreds of years ago have been re-staged by some units in recent times with hundreds of performances shows that the stage can still attract audiences if the plays have artistic quality, are contemporary and have profound humanistic values. In addition to the entertainment factor being handled appropriately, meeting public needs, our country's stage activities need to have strong changes in the form of staging, performance and audience approach. Along with mobilizing social resources, the stage still needs the State's support in terms of facilities and policies for treatment, training and nurturing of talents from composition, directing to actors. Only with the support of the State and through cooperation channels can artists have the opportunity to visit and learn from countries with developed stage industries. In the long term, the theater industry needs to proactively build its own public force, by no other means than coordinating with the education sector to bring theater to schools, build the habit of enjoying theatrical works in students, and gradually create an audience for the future.
![[Photo] General Secretary To Lam presents the decision to establish Party Committees directly under the Central Committee and the functions and tasks of the Central Party Committees](https://vstatic.vietnam.vn/vietnam/resource/IMAGE/2025/2/4/9baf2c50d3d64e6b985f3ceba0d6490f)
![[Photo] General Secretary To Lam meets with officials and staff of the Party Central Office at the beginning of the Spring of At Ty](https://vstatic.vietnam.vn/vietnam/resource/IMAGE/2025/2/4/2f98a536b95643adb146b28aab962209)
Comment (0)