That's really great!

SGGP 12/06/2023 09:45

The 2023 National Festival of Excellent Stage Excerpts in Ha Nam has just concluded with mixed feelings of joy and sadness.

National Festival of Excellent Stage Excerpts 2023. Photo: VNA

As Mr. Nguyen Dang Chuong, Vice President of the Vietnam Association of Theatre Artists, observed, while the excerpts may not be a complete picture of the face of Vietnamese theatre art in the era of integration, they contain enough elements to assess where theatre art stands in response to the demands of social life and the people's need for artistic enjoyment.

106 excerpts from traditional Vietnamese opera (cheo, tuong, cai luong), folk drama, spoken drama, and circus performances, featuring actors from 33 art troupes, offered the public and professionals a rich and colorful artistic feast. With 85 out of 106 excerpts belonging to traditional theatrical art forms, it shows that, despite numerous challenges, traditional theatrical artists still aspire to create, striving to surpass themselves, refining their craft to preserve, pass on, and continue the achievements that many generations of predecessors have dedicated their lives to building. However, alongside the seriously produced excerpts, demonstrating a sense of responsibility, directly reflecting or using historical events to address various aspects of society and people, there were still some "out of place," exaggerated to the point of absurdity, and showing amateurishness in both staging and performance.

Every competition has its good and bad points, but alongside the signs of decline in some participating groups, the most worrying issue is the apparent decrease in both the quantity and quality of the actors. Many excerpts are clichéd, outdated, and repetitive, turning artists into mere "performers" on stage. A competition intended for professionalism is seeing many excerpts from traditional Vietnamese opera that resemble spoken drama, some using crude and vulgar language… And once again, the recurring theme of "rushing to the competition and rushing back" prevents the purpose of learning and exchange from being fully achieved.

The festival concluded, sifting through the bad and highlighting the good, and the art council selected and awarded many well-deserved medals and prizes to works of high artistic quality. However, if those in the profession had better material and spiritual conditions to dedicate themselves to art, theater lovers might have less to regret.

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