What can Vietnamese theater do to escape the deadlock?

This makes anyone interested in Vietnamese theater life feel disappointed and worried...

Back to the… dark times

At the 2023 Stage Awards Ceremony, Dr. Nguyen Dang Chuong - Vice President of the Vietnam Stage Artists Association said that it was a pity that the 2023 Stage Awards did not have an A prize for both plays and literary scripts. The Art Council had to "separate the bad from the good" to select a number of B prizes. This partly reflects the appearance of stage art last year, making us feel unstable and discouraged.

What can Vietnam's production do to escape the disaster? — Scene from the play “Thunderstorm” by Le Ngoc Stage - the work won the B prize of the 2023 Stage Award. Photo: Le Ngoc Stage

Assuming that the stage life in 2023 will return to the gloom and deadlock of many years ago, Dr. Nguyen Dang Chuong further emphasized that the "bottlenecks" that have existed for many years have not been cleared. Among them, the biggest "bottleneck", which is also the most difficult thing at present, is that the stage is in a crisis of creative staff. For many years and even in 2023, the stage has always lacked scripts on contemporary topics, on hot issues that are affecting many aspects, changing people and society in the integration period. Stage authors seem to be avoiding, standing outside the vivid reality that takes place every day, affecting people and society in all aspects, and renewing value systems. That affirms that the team of authors is still "folding their arms and knees" before the reality of life with countless materials flowing away every day.

“The team of authors is at a dead end in terms of creative direction, how to receive and explain the contradictions and conflicts of today’s society and people. Perhaps because of this dead end, most authors choose to write about historical and folk themes and do not dare to reflect all aspects of contemporary life. However, most of the works have only reached the level of historical illustration,” said the Vice President of the Vietnam Stage Artists Association.

Mr. Chuong also said that the theory of theater criticism has been weak for many years. Currently, the criticism force only has a few old writers, there is no next generation. "When the art of theater is not influenced by those who work in theater criticism theory, it will be like a car without brakes, both when going uphill and when going downhill" - Mr. Chuong likened.

From another perspective, assessing the life of the theater in 2023, researcher Nguyen The Khoa has a much more positive view. He believes that after more than 2 decades of crisis (since 1990), in the past 5 years, the theater has made a strong comeback. In 2022, the theater witnessed an explosion after 2 years of being suppressed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. By 2023, the theater will continue its development trend and, more importantly, it is "developing in the right direction".

According to Mr. Khoa, in 2023, the State theater sector will have a strong rise, with theaters lighting up more often. Even the selective theater genre of Tuong has witnessed the Vietnam Tuong Theater "making progress" and selling tickets. "The number of shows in 2023 will be higher, for example, the Hanoi Drama Theater, which just opened in 2022, has performed more nights in 2023. The Vietnam Drama Theater is also lighting up more often and there are even sold-out ticket sales" - Mr. Khoa cited.

Mr. Khoa further emphasized that this movement can be seen more clearly in the non-public theater units. In Hanoi, in addition to Le Ngoc Theater, which has been famous for many years, LucTeam Theater is also an interesting one. LucTeam's play "Doll", although not performed regularly, has very remarkable and popular discoveries. For Le Ngoc Theater, many plays in 2022-2023 such as "King Lear", "72nd Petition" have been performed for hundreds of nights but still have the phenomenon of "sold out tickets". In Ho Chi Minh City, many theater venues have had a very clear recovery in 2023, at the same time forming more non-public theater units, whose activities are also more prosperous than in previous years.

Unanimously remove "bottlenecks"

However, no matter what, many people in the profession share the same opinion that the performing arts still have “many weak plays, few good plays”. According to Associate Professor, Dr. Tran Tri Trac, although there have been many festivals, performances and many medals awarded, we still do not have top-notch works; artists have been awarded many titles but the stage still has no audience; the State actively invests in experimental theater but the performing arts are still old and outdated…

According to experts, to have an attractive play, first of all, you need a good script. However, in reality, the number of good scripts has not been many. To overcome the shortage of scripts, the Vietnam Stage Artists Association often organizes writing camps. However, Mr. Nguyen The Khoa said that due to "lack of attention", most of the scripts written are not used, "usually 20 scripts written can only be used to stage 1 play".

To solve this problem, Mr. Khoa believes that the Association of Stage Artists should take advantage of the richness of Vietnamese literature, because there are many good sources of material for the stage in literature; adaptation is just a technical measure that is not too difficult. "I have proposed to the President of the Association of Stage Artists to establish the Association's Drama Literature Committee, invite writers to participate, and place orders with them to enrich the content for the stage," said Mr. Khoa.

According to researcher Nguyen The Khoa, in order for Vietnamese theater to continue to develop, it is necessary to clearly recognize and resolve the biggest obstacle today, which is that many public cultural and artistic units have been merged mechanically. This leads to the situation where singers, dancers, and musicians have to go to perform stage arts, actors from Cheo to perform drama, Tuong to perform Cheo, Cheo to perform Cai Luong... while the staffing and budget have not been reduced much. Some localities have even brought all art units to the Cultural Center - a mass art unit. This "village woman's cellar" method has brutally "amateurized the theater".

“We can absolutely have another direction, which is to take the theater outside the public sector. But to do that, we need to have policies on this, for example, when it is outside the public sector, what are the policies on taxes, real estate, and bidding for works…” - Mr. Khoa said.

Many experts also agree that in order for the performing arts to produce many worthy works, it is necessary to unanimously remove "bottlenecks", and coordinate between state management agencies, art units, the Vietnam Stage Artists Association and the team of artists directly involved in creation.

Theaters need to proactively create resources, they cannot passively wait for authors to send scripts, and only stage them if they are suitable. In addition to training and encouragement, units need to modernize and apply technology to sound, lighting, design, and shaping, in order to both preserve the identity of each type of theater and meet the needs of the public, especially in the current technology boom. Theaters need to adapt to survive, and attracting audiences and being “on” regularly are prerequisites to achieving this goal.

Khanh Ngoc

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