"If we believe, miracles will appear", the musical The Five-Colored Stone by General Director, Meritorious Artist Cao Ngoc Anh opened with such a proposition.
The image of the iridescent stone is also a symbol of belief: If our dreams are big enough, they will come true!
The child actors play Thien Nhan's friends in the musical The Five-Colored Stone.
Touched by the saying "I was born from my mother's sweet heart"
Thien Nhan's journey in real life has also been sustained by that belief. Starting from the personal efforts of mother Tran Mai Anh in 2006, the journey was initially just an effort to treat the little child she adopted, Thien Nhan.
For more than a decade, the little mother and the child left in a banana grove, with their genitals eaten by wild animals, traveled together across continents to find a way to give their child a full life.
Luu Hoang Yen Nhi and baby Mai, Pham Nam Phong as Thien Nhan
Excerpt from the musical The Five-Colored Stone.
But when Mai Anh and Thien Nhan's mother found a ray of hope for themselves, it also became a ray of hope for many children with genital defects across the country.
These were once difficult to talk about disabilities, not given much attention and rarely treated. The program "Thien Nhan & Friends" was born from that, examining and performing genital reconstruction surgery for thousands of disadvantaged young people.
The Five-Colored Stone was directed by Meritorious Artist Cao Ngoc Anh, Deputy Director of the Youth Theater, inspired by Thien Nhan's Journey. In the musical, the character Be Mai holds tightly onto the five-color stone - a symbol of belief in miracles - throughout her life, and from there, not only created Thien Nhan's own fairy tale. The miracle from Thien Nhan's story has brought hope and changed the lives of many other children.
Sharing about the making of this musical, director Ngoc Anh choked up a bit: "I read an article that moved me deeply, when Thien Nhan asked: 'Mom! Where was I born from?' and Mai Anh replied: 'I was born from your fragrant heart'.
General Director, Meritorious Artist Cao Ngoc Anh answers television press.
This feeling is very strong, the word "good heart" resonates in me, the simple explanation but has given Nhan a strong belief in life, so that he can confidently overcome all difficulties, and nurture beautiful dreams.
For creative artists, they release their emotions through their work, which for me is being staged as part of a musical. There are so many stories I want to tell everyone! This musical is episode one, there could be episode two, episode three, episode four, and more.
We believe that miracles will appear in this life. In our life there are always fairy tales from very real stories".
The song is a story of the artist and the audience, both with joyful and hopeful colors.
The theme of faith is repeated throughout the play, with all the characters appearing. The work "Don't Be Afraid, My Child" - Aria by Mother Coi, composed by poet Khanh Duong and musician Minh Dao, is the anxious voice of Mother Coi as she stands outside the operating room corridor, but is also the voice of doctors and mothers from all over the world.
In the climax of Act 2, Dr. Greig (Thien Nhan’s first surgeon in the play, inspired by the child’s real-life adoptive father) stopped operating in exhaustion. He stepped back from the operating table, and for a moment met the eyes of Mother Coi, who was placing all her trust in his hands. An invisible force made the doctor move towards the operating table, determined to save the child’s life.
Works such as "Borderless Heart", "Green Dream", "Fragrant Heart" combined with modern music played live by the young band Chicktown in the play with a school vibe such as "Confidence", "When Will Mom Get Married" by young musicians and showing a contemporary style, mixed with the rap reading of the child actors in the play somewhat summarize the growing up life of the boy Thien Nhan.
It was a pure but also thorny journey when the boy had to overcome all the looks of pity and sarcasm to grow up, integrate and nurture his belief in goodness.
Press meeting of the musical crew The Five-Colored Stone (Ms. Mai Anh appeared in the program - second person from the left).
Minh Anh is a young soprano, she is in the band Chicktown. Minh Anh said that her family has 4 sisters, but the eldest sister is very special. "I understood my sister better after working with musician Minh Dao. With my later compositions, I always wanted them to be a gift for my sister. In a short time, we composed all of the above songs. We used a lot of modern youth music, so that young people could listen to them. The songs were cheerful and full of hope!".
For Tuoi Tre Theater, this is the next effort in staging purely Vietnamese musicals - a genre of musicals created, staged and performed by Vietnamese people with content built from Vietnamese stories - instead of staging and performing "derivative" works that have been successful in the world.
In 2022, the purely Vietnamese musical successfully staged the play "Waves" which was performed at the Hanoi Opera House, the Vietnam-Soviet Friendship Cultural Palace, the Youth Theater and the Hoa Binh Theater in Ho Chi Minh City.
"The young actors have been carefully selected due to the difficult factors of the current contemporary musical theater genre. They must have the ability to perform '3 in 1': Dancing, acting and singing". General director Cao Ngoc Anh shared: "But with these efforts, we hope that in the near future, pure Vietnamese musicals can bring Vietnamese stories and perform Vietnamese works to spread to the world audience".
Don't stop telling other mothers' stories just because your story is old.
For Thien Nhan & Friends Fund, the musical becomes the next chapter in the journey to spread faith in goodness, in miracles created by human faith. A portion of the musical's revenue will be donated to the Fund's activities in November 2023, where many children will continue to have their lives changed by the hands of loving doctors.
Minh Chau, who plays the role of Mother Coi, said: "I auditioned and was lucky to be accepted for the role of Mai Anh's mother. After practicing with everyone, I discovered a lot. There are things I didn't think I could do. I don't have children yet, so portraying the role of a mother is difficult, especially a great mother."
"The story of Mai Anh's mother and Thien Nhan's child is so old, the character is so old and sometimes I never want to mention it. However, I always remember the words of the President of this fund, he is also the one who connects many doctors around the world to perform surgery for children in Vietnam: For Mai Anh, this is an old story, but today, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, there will be many more children born and there will still be children who have lost or lacked body parts.
And there will be mothers who continue their journey to find their children, so Mai Anh cannot stop telling the stories of other mothers just because her story is old. Because that is a new life for many people.
We hope that each audience member who comes to the musical can also bring home a five-colored stone for themselves. Life always needs faith in fairy tales, and the symbol built by the Youth Theater is to spread that faith." Mother Coi Tran Mai Anh, founder and director of the program "Thien Nhan & Friends" shared about the play.
Ms. Mai Anh, Thien Nhan and Ms. Na Huong.
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