Last night I went to see a Water Puppet show at the Lotus Water Puppet Theater in Hanoi. While the show was clearly meant for foreigners, they had English language narration explaining the Vietnamese songs, it was still fun and an interesting way to spend the night. It should be noted though that the narrator had a bad case of Engrish and was actually kind of hard to understand. The puppets, with the music, had a surprisingly large emotional range. While some puppets did the usual slap-stick puppet comedy thing, the phoenixes were able to tell a simple love story, the turtle was able to tell the sword story from day one, and the unicorns were able to be playful all while actually beaning painted hunks of wood in a shallow pool. The pool itself was used for simple special effects. If I was a young Vietnamese kid 100 years ago I would have been very impressed by the show. The whole show felt somewhat out of time, like little Vietnamese kids at some point in a history use to watch the same show and experience the same feelings. Overall I enjoyed the water puppet show.
Even though I was trying to get away from the communism I couldn’t help thinking of Milan Kundera’s The Joke (a book about the problems of communism) when Jaroslav talks about reviving traditional Moravian folk music. In the beginning of the novel he talks about righting new folk music about the joys and greatness of communism. By the end of the book, Jaroslav realizes how much of an oxymoron “new folk music” actually is. The book concludes that folk culture is folk culture because it is made over generations organically so is always old; any attempts to make new folk culture will fall flat because it can’t be created organically, some entity, in The Joke’s case the party, created it. While the theater is preserving water puppetry, water puppetry is not an evolving art form so no new water puppet shows will be created.
2 Comments
Dad
12/23/2016 01:01:38 am
Are they controlled from above with water beneath or is water just an illusion of the lighting?
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Jared Paul Miller
12/23/2016 09:51:59 pm
They are controlled from beneath the water. There is some lighting illusions but the puppets are not one of them. Yes, it does kind of fit the government's communist ideas though. Water puppets and state sponsored art all have the running theme of idealized agrarian life and old Vietnam.
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AuthorI am a junior at Juniata College spending a year studying abroad at East China Normal University. Please feel free to join my on my journey to China and beyond. Archives
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