Artwork honors the value of peace

Both works convey many thoughts, feelings, respect and pride in the heroic history of the nation's struggle, and look forward to the strong change and development of the country after peace.

A scene from the play "Aspiration for Peace". Photo: THUY BINH

Slices of revolutionary history

The play Desire for Peace (script: Ngoc Truc, director: People's Artist Tran Ngoc Giau) was produced by the author and crew to honor and pay tribute to Ms. Vo Thi Mo (Bay Mo), the excellent commander of the heroic unit - Cu Chi Female Guerrilla Platoon.

The story takes the audience to the moment when four American soldiers were targeted by the little guerrilla. But at that moment, she did not pull the trigger when she saw the soldiers reading letters from home and crying because they missed their loved ones. The kindness of the female guerrilla Bay Mo planted the seed of “desire for peace”.

Lieutenant John Penycate, when he learned that he had escaped death thanks to the kindness of the female guerrilla, was grateful and upon returning to America, John Penycate became a writer and actively participated in the anti-war movement.

Based on real characters, author Ngoc Truc on one hand sticks closely to the original image, on the other hand also fictionalizes many details such as moments of longing for a peaceful country, expressing the pure love of young guerrillas in the heart of the tunnels.

Author Ngoc Truc shared: “When writing The Desire for Peace , I carefully considered the details of the story, so that in the end, I chose the resonance of human pain on both sides of the battlefield, when the gunfire had stopped, to lead to the deeply humane actions of the female guerrilla.”

As a revolutionary historical theme, even though the script was completed, author Ngoc Truc still had to spend more than 3 months to complete it with the comments of many previous authors and artists. The script later received the B Prize for the 2024 composition award of the Ho Chi Minh City Theater Association, and was selected by the Ho Chi Minh City Drama Theater to invest in staging and participate in the 1st Ho Chi Minh City Theater Festival in 2024.

Director - People's Artist Tran Ngoc Giau said: "This is a rather difficult script to stage, because describing the tunnels is difficult, describing two spaces taking place at the same time on stage is even more difficult. The content of the script is also difficult to stage, how to make the work both authentic, expressing the humanity of the female guerrilla - the Vietnamese woman, and convincing the audience to believe that this is a true story, not fiction... Fortunately, our efforts were successful, especially in expressing the desire for peace of the Vietnamese people as well as people around the world".

Heroic song of patriotic youth

At the end of 2023, to celebrate the 79th anniversary of the founding of the Vietnam People's Army, musician Nguyen Van Chung and singer Duyen Quynh joined hands to produce a music album with the theme Homeland - Country with youthful harmony and arrangement.

Realizing that the album still lacked a song that could be a highlight and a summary, musician Nguyen Van Chung composed the song " Writing the Story of Peace" , with the original version being a collective song, quite simple. However, after listening again, feeling that the song was not really worthy, musician Nguyen Van Chung rewrote a completely new song.

A scene from the play "Aspiration for Peace". Photo: THUY BINH

Continuing the story of peace with a heroic rhythm, expressing gratitude for the contributions of previous generations in building and defending the country, paying tribute to the sacrifices of fallen soldiers through many struggles for national independence and freedom; gratitude for the great contributions of President Ho Chi Minh - the great leader of the Vietnamese people; expressing patriotism, national pride and the desire to contribute, youthful enthusiasm to build and develop the homeland in the new era.

“I listed and systematized historical documents according to the time frame from past to present, then simplified them to be short and concise so that the song is like a timeline of the country, with past, present, future and the desire to contribute to the development of the country of the young generation,” musician Nguyen Van Chung shared.

The song " Writing the continuation of the peace story" was then highly appreciated by experts, receiving the A Prize of the 2023 music award of the Ho Chi Minh City Music Association, the C Prize of the 2023 Literature and Arts award of the Vietnam Union of Literature and Arts Associations.

In addition, the song also resonated and received strong support from the public, not only at art shows and festivals but also on digital platforms. As of April 2025, the song has received more than 700 million views on social networking platforms Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram; more than 3.4 million plays from digital music platforms...

THUY BINH - HAI DUY

Source: https://www.sggp.org.vn/tac-pham-nghe-thuat-ton-vinh-gia-tri-hoa-binh-post790533.html