Go to Ha Trung to see a play

(Baonghean) - It is thought that the dust of time has somewhat faded away, but the art of Tuong is still a specialty of Ha Trung, Dien Hoang, Dien Chau. Anyone who has visited this place during village festivals, holidays, Tet, or on clear moonlit nights with cool breezes will enjoy the captivating Tuong melodies...

Perhaps the purely agricultural culture is still imprinted here: bustling villages, "rice fields and honey fields", peaceful and poetic scenery with thatched roofs, bamboo banks, banyan trees, communal house yards... have anchored the ancient opera melodies with the villagers. No one remembers when the art of opera in Ha Trung began, but in the memory of every villager, the opera nights performed at Tam Mai communal house are still deeply imprinted. The ancient opera plays recreate historical stories with actors, clowns, kings, mandarins, soldiers... strangely attractive. Old and young, men and women gathered in the communal house yard, anxiously waiting, feeling sad and happy, loving and hating each character. In those days, the Ha Trung village opera troupe often performed to exchange with the upper and lower villages.

A practice session of the Ha Trung village Tuong Club, Dien Hoang commune (Dien Chau).

Later, the Tuong singing movement no longer developed widely, but the quintessence of this art form was still preserved by the elderly in the village. Among the village's "actors" of the previous generation, only Mr. Phan Dinh remained, considered the "soul" of Ha Trung Tuong. It is not an exaggeration to say that, because even though he was in his seventies, he was still very passionate about Tuong. Each Tuong play in the village was arranged by him, with the script prepared, "casted", and made up...

The small house of his family at the edge of the village, facing Tam Mai communal house, is the meeting place of the Tuong club, where we were lucky to attend a practice session. He showed us a small notebook that had turned yellow with time, with each page meticulously handwritten. “These are the ancient Tuong stories that I have painstakingly collected and preserved.” While cherishing the notebook as a “family heirloom”, he told us about his journey back and forth from Dien My, Dien Loi… and all the way to Yen Thanh to collect his Tuong stories over the past ten years.

Then dozens of costumes for the Tuong performance such as armor, hats, robes, shoes... and props such as swords, knives, bows and arrows, flags... were all made by him. He introduced each costume in his "valuable treasure trove" with a proud voice. Each costume was like a work of art that he meticulously sewed by hand for months. Not minding the distance, he traveled all the way to Hanoi, Bac Giang, Binh Dinh... to both learn and buy fabrics and sequins to sew and attach to each costume. He did everything voluntarily and independently, "because I am so passionate about Tuong" - he confided.

His passion was the source of the birth of the Ha Trung Traditional Tuong Club and, above all, fostered and passed on the love of traditional Tuong to the people here. Although he did not study it formally, because he listened to it a lot and watched it a lot, the lyrics of Tuong songs seemed to be deeply ingrained in the thinking, soul and daily life of the people of Ha Trung village. The women passed on the traditional Tuong songs in the fields during the harvest and planting season, working with their hands and singing enthusiastically... The lyrics in the Tuong stories: Trong Thuy - My Chau, Trung Trac - Trung Nhi, Hong Son Fire... became lullabies and improvisational conversations in life.

The majority of the people in the village are still middle-aged women and girls. They gather together to form an “army of the Trung sisters” as club members often jokingly say. Ms. Nguyen Thi Sau, the main actress in the village’s Tuong plays, who has been involved in this traditional art form for nearly 15 years, shared: “Joining the club, we sisters get to interact and learn from each other, so our love for Tuong grows stronger and stronger.” She loves it so much that when she is busy with farming, whenever she comes home, she turns on the disc to watch the Tuong plays, then sings and acts along…

And in any cultural or artistic activities of the village or commune, the women in the club are always ready to join in the fun. The women, the peasants, in their simple, frayed cloth shirts and bare feet still covered in mud from the fields, when they step onto the stage, they transform into majestic and heroic generals, or dignified and dignified kings, or funny clowns stirring up the stage... Perhaps that is the most distinctive feature of the Ha Trung Tuong Club, which in performances, the Cuong Temple Festival, and group exchanges, leaves a special impression.

Performing plays is difficult, and for female actors, it requires even more effort. The difficulty of performing plays is not only in the correct way of singing: ngam, vinh, than oan, nam thuong, xuan nu... but also in the appearance, style, and gestures to fully portray the character's spirit and personality. Only those who are passionate about this traditional art can stick with it for a long time. The youngest member of the club is Ms. Pham Thi Ha, over 35. She is a girl from a neighboring village who married into Ha Trung village, but traditional plays have been ingrained in her blood since the times she went to see festivals and from her mother-in-law, who was a famous actress in the village at one time. She honestly said: "To perform plays well, we must practice hard. We always have to learn from the 'teachers' who went before and watch and listen to plays regularly, then practice, only then can we truly get into the role of each character from singing, gestures, facial expressions..."

Perhaps that is why the younger generation of the village hardly knows how to perform traditional plays. That is also the concern of Mr. Phan Dinh: “I really hope that the art of Tuong will live forever, contributing to preserving the quintessence of the nation’s art, but our generation of artists has “decreased” a lot, the younger generation now is not as enthusiastic about Tuong as we were in the past”.

Despite such concerns, for the people of Ha Trung village, for generations, “no opera, no festival”. Opera performances always bring laughter and profound, humane life experiences, which are realistically recreated by the village’s artists. Opera is always an indispensable “spiritual food” in festivals and commemorative programs of the village and Dien Hoang commune. And fortunately, many children of this village still love the traditional art of their ancestors. They voluntarily contribute funds to buy stage construction tools and musical instruments for the performance club.

These days before Tet, the village communal house yard is lit up every night, the Tuong troupe practices to prepare for the program to celebrate the Party and celebrate spring. The bustling sounds of drums, cymbals, and two-stringed flutes… seem to fuel the passion of the farmers to sublimate their roles. Traditional Tuong still resounds in the happy days of the village, as an effort to preserve and pass on the unique cultural beauty to the next generation; and to make the spring days more jubilant and imbued with identity.

Dinh Nguyet