How are French plays making a comeback on the Sai Gon stage?

During the 1940s, people in Sai Gon adapted many French plays because French-educated Vietnamese found this format acceptable. However, director Tran Minh Ngoc, an expert in French drama, had a different point of view as follows: Question: There were times when French plays disappeared from Sai Gon's stages. Some believe these scripts and showy performances cannot attract a modern audience. What is your view? Answer: In 1991, when I was teaching at the Drama School in the south, the Ministry of Culture invited me to attend a workshop on French drama in Hanoi. Some French authors and directors, including Georges Lavandant and Michel Deutsch, talked about modern French theater. We were shocked because we'd only known classic, formal French theater. We didn't know that modern French the after was more practical, realistic, and simple. This new format is more interesting to audiences, who like good scripts and performances. France has a long theatrical tradition; its writers can produce good scripts. The rest depends on whether the artists act the plays in ways that audiences accept.



Question: Do you think the recent appearance of French plays on Sai Gon's stages means French drama has acquired a new status in the city? Answer: The number of French plays being performed now is modest. The artists are partly to blame for this, since they don't I like the formal character of French theater. However, we should reconsider the criteria for reviewing Vietnamese and foreign scripts. I agree we should give priority to Vietnamese plays, but we should not take this to extremes. We must realize that a good script irrespective of its country of origin - makes staging more effective. Our staging of world-famous plays shows that our acting skills have reached a high standard. I n the past, we successfully performed great foreign plays such as L'Avare (The miser) and Tartuffe or L'lmposteur (Tartuffe or The imposter) by Moliere. Please don't think that by staging foreign plays, we were just absorbing foreign influence and had nothing to contribute. French theater emerged from enlightenment and rationalism. However, French theater is also changing. It is experimenting with the Oriental artistic approach, which is more conventional and symbolic.



Question: You mean that some plays staged at the Institut d'Echanges Culturels avec la France (IDECAF) have already incorporated these two way influences? Answer: Yes. That's why the artists could perform creatively and also the reason the audiences kept coming. You should come and see the performers. On stage, they live the lives of their characters. It's thanks to these scripts that Sai Gon's theater is more diverse these days.