The Water Boys

The International Puppet Festival is helping Vietnamese water puppet troupes expand their repertoire.
Water Puppetry is one of Vietnam’s oldest performing arts and a highly popular form of entertainment. The lessons taught by the water puppets storylines are not just a way of showcasing Vietnamese culture to foreign visitors but also a relevant form of reminding contemporary Vietnamese of their own traditional values and sense of identity, an identity that was forged in the farming communities of the Red River Delta over 1,000 years ago.
During the Ly dynasty of the 11th century, before a series of dikes were built out of soil, the Red River would swell each year, spill over its banks, and flood much of the region. This annual flooding of the lowlands inspired a form of entertainment that is found only in Vietnam: the water puppets.
Over time puppet shows graduated from the fields to the small ponds and lakes beside the communal houses (dinh), found in every traditional Vietnamese village in the delta. Water puppetry was clearly widespread and today many northern provinces still have their own water puppetry troupes. In Hanoi, the Thang Long Puppetry Theatre is the most successful and well known. The theatre, located by Hanoi’s legendary Hoan Kiem lake, can attract 1,000 to 1,500 domestic and foreign tourists per day.
As its origins and themes hark back to farming communities in feudal times, today water puppetry is also not merely an enjoyable theatre show but also a living portrait of Vietnamese culture. A performance will consist of 12 to 18 acts, each of them telling a mythological story about Vietnam and its history, while a small ensemble of traditional musicians and cheo singers provide background music.
One story, for example, tells the story of the golden tortoise that lived in Hanoi’s Hoan Kiem Lake and supposedly emerged from the depths to take back the sword from King Ly Thai To who used it to fight off Chinese invaders.
Now, in association with celebrations for the 1,000th anniversary of Thang Long- Hanoi, the Second International Puppet Festival will held in the capital. The Thang Long Puppetry Theatre has been developing a new show especially for the event.
Innovations
The new scenes or skits will be added to the traditional show with new puppets and new equipment – all provided by VND400 million investment from the theatre’s own coffers. This all-new 55-minute show will still continue to showcase Vietnam’s culture, folklore and religious beliefs. The music remains traditional with Hat trong quan (Army anthems), Quan Ho (love duets), and the Red River Delta-style folk music.
The first show will debut during the second International Puppet Festival held from September 20 – 30 in 2010. There will be 20 puppetry troupes from all over the world in the capital. A wonderful opportunity to showcase this highly entertaining Vietnamese dramatic art while discovering foreign forms of puppetry.
Thang Long Puppetry Theatre director Nguyen Hoang Tuan says that over the past couple of decades, Vietnam’s puppetry troupes have been trying to revive the art form while enhancing it. “But nearly all water puppetry troupes nationwide and our theatre are the same in terms of content, style of puppets and cheo music,” says Tuan.
Moreover, puppets are often carved without any distinguishing trait so the audience can’t guess when the story is set. “Innovation is imperative now because the existing puppet shows will not always lure audiences or inspire the creativity of the troupes,” Tuan says. “Many foreign tourists love the water puppets but some ask to see new puppets and performances.”
“Many countries want us to attend their puppet festivals. We also want to but we need to have new puppets because we cannot always introduce our old items to the world,” he says. Today the puppeteers still perform in a chest-deep pool of water but behind a curtain on the stage. The water is kept deliberately murky so as to obscure the poles and mechanics used to control the puppets, which are protected from the elements by a layer of lacquer.
The puppets usually range from 30 to 100 centimetres in height and weigh from one to five kilograms. Larger puppets can weigh up to 20kg and need four people to help control it. Characters in the acts can be heroic, legendary or mythic, but most are ordinary peasants while plot lines tend to be action-oriented as it is beyond the ability of the puppets to convey emotional conflicts.
The water’s surface is also a barometer of the scale of emotion conveyed. It is calm and serene when fairies appear to sing and dance, and it becomes a heaving tempest when a battle breaks out with the participation of fire-spitting dragons.
Some plays include the use of the fireworks, especially during battle scenes, while all performances are accompanied by folk opera singers and traditional instruments. Performances usually begin with the clown, or Teu, taking the stage and he acts as a linking character between various scenes.
Fairy dances, buffalo fighting, duck tending, fishing, kylins fighting for a ball, drumming and rice planting are the most wanted folk items because they remind of rural life through soulful-looking puppets controlled by skilled artistes.
Water puppetry dropped off the radar during the decades of war Vietnam until it was revived in the 1980s. While it took time to re-develop the art form due to a lack of numbers and poor facilities, thanks to Vietnam’s recent economic upturn it seems water puppets has found its way onto the world stage as a result of expanding relations with the West.
In an attempt to win over modern-day audiences, however, some scriptwriters have tweaked traditional plots. The Hong Phong puppet troupe from Hai Duong province, for example, has adapted a story called The Frog Sues Heaven, in which a thief sneaks into a Buddhist pagoda under the cover of a dark and stormy night, and steals antique statues, aiming to sell them to overseas buyers.
As morning breaks, the villagers and the local animals discover their loss and after seeking help from the Jade King of Heaven, finally catch the thief and after a quick trial, under Article 272 of the Criminal Code, the thief is dispatched to jail for three years.