A colorful picture of a "difficult" topic
The number of 25 plays performed by theaters and performing art units in 13 days at the Military Theater ( Hanoi ) shows the excitement and enthusiasm of the theater artists nationwide who have made efforts to reflect the diversity in approaches to a topic that is considered "difficult" due to its specific nature, which is the image of a police officer.
If in the past, the stage often approached the image of the police in a "dry political" direction, then in this festival, the directors, scriptwriters and artists have really "softened" this topic with emotional, dramatic stories, sometimes with detective, psychological or magical colors, but still maintaining the political and social nature of the image. The staging efforts are clearly shown through the use of modern stage techniques: non-linear staging, interweaving reality and memory, effectively using the combination of sound, images, videos, text and graphics to create a multimedia stage work, especially exploiting the psychological depth of the characters to thereby highlight the ideological depth of the play.
A scene from the play “The Third Person” by the People’s Police Drama Theater won the festival’s gold medal. Photo: CHAU XUYEN |
The CAND Drama Theater - the main unit of the festival, presented two plays: "The Third Person" and "Fire Flower". In "The Third Person", the director chose a detective structure mixed with psychoanalysis, focusing on the soldier's inner self in the relationship between responsibility and emotion. There, the third force - the artist - contributed to the success with the Saigon special forces to bring glorious victories right in the heart of the enemy. Meanwhile, "Fire Flower" is a modern heroic epic, where the soldier not only fights the enemy outside but also makes silent sacrifices in his own family.
“Sunshine in the Eye of the Storm” (Quang Ninh Art Troupe) and “Love” (Army Drama Theater) chose a staging style with a strong contemporary social character, exploiting the interaction between the police and the people, especially in a complex environment when having to fight against sophisticated criminals. The play “Blue Sky at the Bottom of the Abyss” by the Hanoi Academy of Theatre and Cinema is an interesting experiment in bringing musicals to the police theme, combining musical and physical elements to tell a story about the torment and forgiveness of the fire prevention and fighting force. Plays such as: “Confrontation” (Hanoi Drama Theater), “End” (Youth Theater), “Against the Peaceful Current” (Vietnam Drama Theater) or “Belief in the Border” (Lam Son Art Theater, Thanh Hoa) all chose the critical realism technique, placing soldiers in paradoxical situations - where the boundary between right and wrong, between justice and love becomes fragile. It is that torment that brings out the image of the police officer, not idealized but very human, but still full of ideals.
The highlight of this year’s festival is the presence of 10 traditional art troupes, with genres such as cheo, cai luong, tuong, and ca drama. The image of the People’s Public Security soldier is brought into the performance space rich in folklore, highlighting the blend of tradition and modernity.
The play “The Devil’s Game” (Binh Dinh Traditional Arts Theater) uses music, light and the actors’ inner performance to tell the story of a police officer solving a case. “The Oath on Cot Co Mountain” (Hai Phong Cai Luong Troupe) impresses with its national epic sound; while “Ben Song Trang” (Hung Yen Cheo Theater) wins over the audience with its modern and traditional folk singing. Other notable plays such as “Khong Ngai” (Nghe An Traditional Arts Center), “Song Vang Lach Hoi” (Lam Son Arts Theater, Thanh Hoa), “Ngon Ngu Cua Fire” (Quang Nam Ca Drama Troupe)... have all succeeded in bringing the image of the soldier into the national cultural flow, creating an emotional resonance with the audience, especially the audience who love Cai Luong, Nghe folk songs and Bai Choi folk songs.
New momentum in artistic creations about the image of the People's Police
Experts commented that authors who adapted literary scripts into art forms such as Cheo, folk songs, folk songs of Nghe An, Cai Luong... have improved their skills, renewed their writing and created many emotions through the adaptation; both preserving traditional art and creating a new atmosphere when creatively applying writing techniques suitable for the form of staging with technological resonance, supporting the performances of the artists.
The spirit of participation is worthy of respect at this festival, when the stages of socialized units of Ho Chi Minh City participated with 4 creative plays: "Another war" (Hong Van Stage) tells about the front line of drug prevention and control using the technique of cinematography combined with real scenes; "Deep night" (Quoc Thao Stage) goes into the depth of criminal psychology, creating a work with a new and attractive direction; "Emotional reunion" (Truong Hung Minh Art Stage) chooses a gentle, humane approach, depicting the connection between police officers and people's families; "Sugar-coated bullet" (Ho Chi Minh City University of Theater and Cinema) is the voice of a police officer about the price of choice in an environment full of temptations and ethical boundaries. The plays have brought a breath of fresh air, thanks to their youthful staging style and flexible image processing, reflecting a multi-dimensional view of the police force in modern society.
Compared to previous seasons, this festival has affirmed its maturity in terms of art and thinking in staging the theme of the People's Public Security Forces. The success of the festival comes from the serious participation, the effort to innovate the stage language and the companionship of management agencies with the artistic life. All have sketched a colorful picture of the image of the People's Public Security Forces, in which it vividly depicts many aspects, many fields, many tasks, many challenges, difficulties, many hidden corners of life and in social life that have been and are weighing on the shoulders of the People's Public Security Forces. Deep in that picture are also humanistic values, those values lead viewers to feel, contemplate, cleanse and purify their souls to live a good life, do good things, eliminate bad things, and together build a happy and civilized society. The image of a police officer contains happiness, bitterness, joy, sadness, will, determination, aspiration, love, hardship, difficulty, glory, responsibility, anxiety, contemplation, talent, courage... and above all is the virtue of sacrifice. Sacrifice for the people, for the country.
The stage is constantly looking for new ways of telling stories, both profound in thought and attractive in form to touch the hearts of today's audiences. Dramas no longer avoid hot issues but directly reflect and address them frankly, so they easily receive applause from the audience. There are also regrets, some plays and actors still perform out of formation, showing that in terms of professional expertise, the regular police force has not been carefully advised. Therefore, the image of police officers in some works is blurred, their presence to solve problems in the script seems to be to fulfill the assigned duties and tasks, they do not have enough "land" and time on stage to create an image. That is regrettable and leads to some units "dropping" the medal this time.
Source: https://baoangiang.com.vn/phac-hoa-buc-tranh-da-sac-ve-hinh-tuong-cong-an-nhan-dan-a424097.html
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