You don’t have to be an “artist” to be able to appreciate “art”, considering how there seems to be hundreds of art forms out there. So you can’t carry a tune? You have two left feet? That doesn’t mean you can’t tell a very good performance from a ho-hum one. That means you don’t have to be a puppeteer – or a puppet – to appreciate the art of puppeteering. Or making puppets carry out a theatrical performance.
I may have been of the Batibot generation (STOP. COMPUTING. MY. AGE.) and Sesame Street was already huge when I was in grade school, but I was never into that type of thing. Instead of sitting in front of the television watching those programs and getting reeled in by Big Bird and the gang, I was out there, somewhere, with my male cousins, getting my knees scraped and my legs getting scars I’d regret having later on in life.
So I’d (again) be honest and say that, if the itinerary-planning for our Vietnam trip was left in my hands, watching a water puppet theatre show would be the last thing on my list.
Or, maybe not. Considering how so many (TripAdvisor is practically nagging people to check it out) are suggesting that it’s one of the must-see and must-do Hanoi activities, I’d probably throw it in there somewhere. (But it won’t be a priority.)
So isn’t it such a good thing, then, that Sheryll was the one who planned most of our itinerary? Otherwise, I’d have missed out on this Vietnamese art form.
We chose to catch an afternoon schedule for a show at the Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre. It was a perfect excuse for us to rest our legs from all that walking done (to the St. Joseph Cathedral and Hoa Lo Prison) earlier that day. So after a hearty lunch of pho, we walked towards Hoan Kiem Lake and went straight to the Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre.
The Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre is difficult to miss, since it is imposing and quite huge, located right across the picturesque Hoan Kiem Lake. The sheer number of people in front of the building is also a major giveaway, since there are lots of tour buses and tour groups waiting right before it.
Water puppetry is considered to be a traditional art in Vietnam, and a major part of Vietnamese culture. It’s also quite an old art form, tracing its roots back in the 11th century, when the Vietnamese folk over in the north brought it down to the other parts of Vietnam.
Today, water puppetry is still very much a flourishing performance art form in Vietnam, frequently staged both in the two major cities of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh. In Hanoi, the two main places to watch it are in the Hanoi Museum of Ethnology, and in the Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre. If you want to get the full experience, however, go for the latter.
The Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre (check out their official website, but it is in Viet) has gained recognition, and even boasting a record in the Asia Book of Records in 2014 for having performed “the traditional water puppet art for the longest duration (19 years) by doing four to six shows every day since 1994”.
Just check out that day’s schedule. It’s a packed week!
At 3:45 pm, we secured our tickets for the 4:10pm show. One (adult) ticket costs 100,000 VND, and that is roughly Php 220.00 or USD 4.35. Cameras are allowed inside, but you have to pay an extra 20,000 VND (Php 45.00) if I remember correctly. I don’t think they charge for camera phones, though.
The doors open 10 minutes before the show, so we grabbed some coffee at the nearby cafe, and went in when they started letting people inside.
We got to sit on the front row (YAAAAY~!). There are no seat assignments on the tickets, by the way, but the ushers led us to the seats right in front of the “water stage”.
So, in the old days, these water puppetry performances are carried out on actual communal ponds in the various towns and villages. The stage is basically a pool of water. Murky water, but I think the greenish-brown color is intentional, for maximum effect later on.
A “curtain” that looks like it’s made of rattan or some kind of thin strips of bamboo separates the audience from the puppeteers who are “backstage”. There are also drapings with traditional designs mostly of dragons and other mystical animals which, I presume, have a meaning in Vietnamese traditional folklore.
On the left side of the stage is an elevated platform where the musicians and singers will stay at. It was empty when we first came in, then as the show began, the musicians – dressed traditionally, of course – filed in. The three female musicians looked especially pristine in their white ao dai garb.
Now here’s my beef: it was not in English. Which made me go “whaaaaa~” considering how most of the audience is non-Vietnamese. We just had to rely on the program we were handed to make sense of what’s going on. At least that one is written in English. I’m not sure, though, if they have English shows but this one definitely wasn’t.
The show opened with a musical performance of the musicians, with them playing traditional musical instruments, followed by two other female singers.
That lady looked soooo serene playing that traditional instrument.
I’d later on find out that the name of the instrument she’s playing is the Dan Bau, which is a monochord made out of bamboo. There is only one string, and what makes it very impressive is how she can make various sounds using just that one string.
And the water puppetry finally began.
By the way, the puppets are made from wood, but to make them last for a long time (they’d be used in the water, after all), they are lacquered and treated for longevity in water. If you look closely into the water, you’d probably spot some of the sticks they are attached to, which is how the puppeteers “backstage” are controlling them.
The background music and sound effects are supplied by the musicians on the platform. The dialogues of the puppets are by the puppeteers behind the curtain.
Water puppetry tackles rural themes, so the storytelling revolves mainly around daily rural life involving farming and fishing, with some folklore and myth retelling thrown in. I loved how they threw in a lot of lighthearted moments, like monkeys teasing and stealing from humans, and fish practically giving fishermen a difficult time catching them.
I am impressed with the use of colors, the costumes of the puppets giving them distinct characters, and the “energy” of the puppets (or, technically, the puppeteers). The stage presentation is also quite something to behold. They even got lighting effects and smoke effects down pat!! *applause*
I wish I still had the program with me, but I can no longer find it. And I wish I even had photographic memory so I can tell you exactly what the “stories” are. There were more than 8 stories told through the puppets, and they involved ordinary folk, fantastical animals, even deities and fairies, and figures of legend.
I wish I was able to get better photos, but it’s either I concentrate on taking pictures and miss the actual show, or watch the show and have mediocre shots. Guess what option I went with.
Anyway, here are some photos.
Water dragons spouting – what else? – water from their mouths while doing synchronized swimming.
A tableau of a day out in the farm.
I think this was a mischievous monkey stealing the day’s catch from a fisherman, and the latter giving chase to the monkey.
And fishermen going about their business. I think the third photo came about because of two fishermen fighting over a single clever fish that is playing with them both. They end up “catching” each other instead.
By the way, those are real flames being toted by the puppets. I don’t know how they did it.
I’m not familiar with local legends, but this one involved dragons and mythical creatures, and the great men who caught or subdued them. Heroic tales, indeed. The last two photos retold the story of how a legendary golden turtle was captured.
The final story, if I remember correctly, involved a group of godesses/fairies dancing together.
At the end of the show, the curtains rose, and out came the puppeteers – the real stars of the show. Doing this several times a day, all week, may be tiring for some of them (of course they may be in shifts) but you can tell from those smiles that they love what they’re doing.
If you’re up for buying some souvenirs, you can do so after the show, since you’ll be shown out of the theatre and into a shop of sorts.
The show ran for around 45 minutes. All in all, it was a very entertaining staging of a traditional art form, combining water puppetry, song/music, and craftsmanship in one platform. I’d definitely recommend this to anyone who is visiting Hanoi. Although, if you don’t have patience sitting through a stage performance, especially if you prefer to understand EVERYTHING and it’s all served to you in a platter, you might have trouble fully appreciating this.
But for me, personally, I LOVED IT.
Thanks for including this in our itinerary, She~!!! *hugs*
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