”The Bald Soprano” – LucTeam pioneers with Theatre of the Absurd
Written with photos by Nguyen Duc Tung for Hanoi Grapevine
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Although just established in late 2017, LucTeam led by director Tran Luc made a bold move. Through “The Bald Soprano”, LucTeam performed for the first time a play of Theatre of the Absurd in front of Vietnamese audience at L’Espace, Hanoi.
The original “The Bald Soprano” was written by French playwright Eugene Ionesco and was first performed in 1950 in Paris. The play received wide acclaim, opening the door for the Theatre of the Absurd movement – also known as “tragicomedy” in the modern West.
The outstanding feature of this theater genre is its “anti-theater” nature in a traditional sense, meaning anti-plot, anti-drama and anti-character. The characters on the stage performed a series of actions and words seemingly incomprehensible and incoherent. Of course those absurd things were not at all meaningless and all had certain profound meaning, but their methods of expression were completely different than what the Vietnamese audience are used to with normal theater. Stage directors in Vietnam were also reluctant regarding the reaction from the audience, as absurd theater works had been translated into Vietnamese a long time ago and yet no one performed.
On the contrary, LucTeam found absurd theater to be very suitable for a symbolic set design. This was a minimalist performance regarding contextual design inspired by traditional theatrical genres such as tuồng and chèo. Only conveying the messages but not the reality itself, this edition of “The Bald Soprano” was a combination of the two aforementioned artistic languages. All scenes were minimalist and symbolic, contributing to the absurdity in the whole performance.
In this version of “The Bald Soprano”, Tran Luc as well as his team had subtly “Vietnamized” the play. Still retaining all the details and the Western character names, LucTeam had added very “Vietnamese” details such as the sound of monochord by artist Luong Hue Trinh, or the plastic stools, the altar-shaped wooden cabinets,… created by stage designer George Burchett. This gave the audience a sense of familiarity and from that point, accept the performance with ease.
The actors contributed no small part. With the nature of a symbolic set design, conveying messages and not reality, LucTeam actors are always up for a creativity challenge. They constantly have to research the script themselves beforehand to construct a character in their very own way. This is why after each performance, LucTeam becomes bolder and handles the stage better than before.
LucTeam had had a successful agreement with the family of the late Eugene Ionesco to obtain the rights to produce and perform “The Bald Soprano” in Vietnam for a year. The first performance took place on 12 Jan 2019 at L’Espace Hanoi.
With all that attentive preparation, not only director Tran Luc or the entire LucTeam, but also the audience can fully trust and accept absurd theater as a new “dish” for our spirit.
Images from the performance:
Translated by Hanoi Grapevine
