People's Artist Minh Tue: As long as I act, I will continue to explore and learn.

From the main singer of the stage cpass

Minh Tue was born into a family where no one was a singer, yet even when he was still in school, he had a great ambition to pursue a military career, despite his great talent for singing. However, in the years 1983 - 1984, when he had not yet had time to study hard to pursue a path unrelated to art, he was found by the Director of the Nghe Tinh Opera Troupe at that time, and "weighed his voice", because that person with a keen eye had heard Minh Tue sing opera in a commune-level competition and saw "a long way" in the male student from Anh Son district.

After nodding to enter the Cai Luong stage, Minh Tue was sent by the troupe to study accelerated stage at the University of Theatre and Cinema, where he was evaluated as an excellent student with high creativity in acting classes. As expected, upon joining the troupe, Minh Tue quickly integrated and took on the main roles. “Back then, we had a great time performing, people crowded together to stand in circles inside and outside, the theater was always packed to the brim. There were nights when people crowded together until the theater’s iron fence collapsed,” People’s Artist Minh Tue recalled.

Therefore, the main actors of the Cai Luong Troupe, first of all, must be talented actors with a stage-appropriate figure. Minh Tue has all of these qualities and quickly became famous throughout the professional stage of the country. During the years of living in the "silk of Cai Luong", Minh Tue has won 4 gold medals and 1 silver medal. Typical roles include: Engineer Thanh Tung, who brings the light of culture and knowledge to the people of the highlands in "Xon xao rung Que" or the devoted doctor in "Dua con dong dong"; the cunning and cruel prime minister Solita in "Am muon chua hoang cung"; and other memorable roles, although they did not win any medals, marked his journey into the professional stage with constant exploration, hard work and creativity.

Minh Tue is never satisfied with any type of role, he always explores and experiments with many different types of roles, from male singers, drama, to villains; politicians, kings, to corrupt officials, he tries to struggle and explore every role to have the most complete soul, personality, and demeanor of the character.

To the role of a lifetime...

When the mechanism changed, in 2001, the province's professional art troupes, including the White Lotus Cai Luong Troupe, the Nghe An Cheo Troupe and the Nghe An Folk Song Troupe, merged into one troupe named Nghe An Folk Song Theatre (later the Center for Preservation and Promotion of Nghe An Folk Song Heritage). Minh Tue was considered the core figure to steer the budding folk drama boat. "Back then, each play was a workshop, while teaching the performance, the director had to experiment with melodies and pieces, so folk drama had to inherit much from traditional dramas such as Cai Luong or Cheo". During those experimental steps, Minh Tue was not only the main actor but also, together with the director, found directions for folk drama. “If we only use vi, giặm, and ho, we cannot write for drama. Drama needs narrative passages and climaxes of dialogue, so we need main melodies like the four-flower poem borrowed from cải lương... Therefore, each completed play is a workshop, we work and learn from experience.”

During this period, the stage was not as popular as before because there were many other forms of entertainment competing. However, the Folk Theatre still had many quality plays produced, in which Minh Tue was one of the main actors, both playing the main role and working with the director to explore the characters of the play.

The role of village chief Tran Hoat in Vu Cat - Vu Quang Vinh won the Gold Medal at the National Professional Stage Festival, a character that made a splash in the theater world nationwide. The role of Tran Hoat was considered the best role in the years 2003 - 2004 when wherever he went, people only called him "village chief Tran Hoat" and no longer called the actor's name. To have a lively, realistic Tran Hoat who both represents a social class and ensures the drama of a character, Minh Tue spent many sleepless nights trying to make Tran Hoat appear fully, vividly and representatively. “At first, the director only requested that this role be a villain, Tran Hoat had to portray a greedy village chief who was passionate about power. But I thought that if those characteristics were shown directly, it would not be good, not valuable for this character, so I boldly suggested adding a bit of humor in the way Tran Hoat laughed, talked, handled situations, and performed. Humor would help Tran Hoat appear more cunning, humor would cover up the evil and sinister nature in him in a sophisticated way, and this character would be more valuable on stage,” Minh Tue said. From those concerns, this role deserved to create a turning point in Minh Tue’s acting in the years when the theater no longer sold tickets, but the Folk Theater still had hundreds of performances from the South to the North.

...And roles without medals

Talking about investing to get valuable performances, Minh Tue recalls that for him, the roles that won medals were the roles that he shed a lot of sweat and tears for, but there were roles that did not win medals but made him remember it as an important milestone in his life. "It made Minh Tue and made my life on the folk opera stage" - Minh Tue said. That was the role of the traitor Tran Van Buong in the play "Noi dat cu", one of the plays that participated in the international experimental stage. This stage was a conference hosted by Vietnam, with the participation of countries with developed theater such as Japan, China, France, Australia. This experiment was organized to revive the country's theater that was on the decline. The play "Noi dat cu" directed by Le Hung, a master of theater, had new experimental steps from the scenery to the performance. Minh Tue recalls: “The role of Buong is a rather complicated one, the actor must not only act out the psychological developments of cowardice, betraying his comrades, but also show his torment, fear and regret when returning after many years away, when seeing the grave of his son, a martyr”. Minh Tue said that the literary plot and good script gave him a lot of inspiration. Besides, with the creative scenery, only 6 bamboo trees for all the scenes created special stage effects. It was also from this special effect that when Buong returned home to say goodbye to his wife and children to escape to America, Minh Tue acted out the scene, Buong, because he was afraid of being chased by the Viet Minh, quickly climbed up the bamboo tree. “This “piece” alone made the director very happy. Mr. Hung said he didn’t expect me to handle it so well. I think it was just because I was lucky to have climbed areca trees to pick fruit for my mother when I was young in the countryside, so I was able to improvise quickly,” Minh Tue said.

The role that he said he did not receive any medals from the festival but received many medals from the audience who loved folk theater, was the character of General Vo Nguyen Giap in the play "Khoang troi con gai" in 2013. The play was built after the General passed away, the whole nation and thousands of Vietnamese people mourned. And with gratitude, the actors of the Center for Preservation and Promotion of Folk Heritage of Nghe An put all their strength, enthusiasm, and affection into each of their roles. As for Minh Tue, he painstakingly studied every gesture, gait, voice, and way of enunciating words of the General in each situation; the General's laughter and eyes when communicating with the soldiers and the people. “Honestly, I felt very nervous when accepting this role, but the more difficult and challenging it was, the more determined I was to do it, and fortunately, after the role, many people praised me, “It’s like that, Mr. Tue”. This play was performed in many places, many provinces and cities, and received very positive feedback from the audience and experts. That was a priceless reward for me, a sparkling medal on my chest even though I was not awarded.” - Minh Tue said.

Throughout his career on stage, he has played a king, a traitor to his country, and a politician. Every role he has played has left a strong impression on the audience. Although he has won 9 gold medals and 3 silver medals, Minh Tue always believes that he still has to make more efforts. As long as he acts, he still has to explore, learn, and improve his skills, even though he is now a mentor for the younger generation.

Folk songs need to be transmitted to spread strongly, and for People's Artist Minh Tue, to be transmitted, artists need to be shining examples in work and study. Because for this People's Artist who has devoted his life to the theater, just being able to perform is enough to see how beautiful life is.