Hanoi stages Figeuiredo favourite
17:00 29/03/2004

The current production of Aesop or the Fox and the Grapes at Hanoi's Youth Theatre is filled with women dancing around a hearth and men dressed like black ghosts.        

 

Though Brazilian playwright Guilielmo Figeuiredo's classic has been performed in Vietnam for thirty years, it has never before been performed in Hanoi and it has always been produced on a small scale.

This latest incarnation from Director Le Hung is a little different.

"The play is of a (full) theatre stature, not meant for small stages in Hai Phong or HCM City (where it had previously been performed)," assistant Director Chi Trung said. "We tried to create a panorama about (Ancient Greece's) slave-holding regime."

Not much is known about Figeuiredo himself, according to the theatre's directorial board, but the play was apparently written in the 1940s. It retells the story of Aesop, an ugly slave, but a brilliant story-teller who chose to die for his freedom in sixth century BC Greece.

Its Director Le Hung said it was important people did not turn their backs on classic works.

So far the play has not been attracting large audiences, but Mr Hung believed it will do better than the Youth Theatre's previous classic revivals, such as Macbeth, for one simple reason.

Everyone, he said, can relate to the story of Aesop.

"I felt sorry for Aesop and got angry when I saw the slaves being beaten," Phuong Anh, 26, said. "But the tragedy did not leave me with any bitterness."

"It's the Youth Theatre's style: young and positive. I still got to laugh at ridiculous Xanthus (Aesop's foolish master who fancies himself as a great philosopher)."

The Van Nghe Quan Doi (Army Arts) newspaper's Hong Thanh Quang was particularly impressed by the production. "Mr Hung has refreshed the old play with his own feelings and creativity."

The production has also utilised some creative casting.

Chi Trung who plays Aesop, has been working with the Youth Theatre since it began in 1978. He is actually more used to comic roles in such plays as Gay Ong Dap Lung Ong (Making a Rod for One's Own Back) and Cai Chet Cua Sep va Lon (The Death of Boss and Pig).

Quoc Tuan, who plays the fool Xanthus, is more of a dramatic actor who has appeared in such films as Nhung Nguoi Song Quanh Toi (People Around Me) and Dien Bien Phu Tren Khong (Dien Bien Phu of the Air).

Mr Hung is contrite when he discusses his casting decisions. "Mr Trung has been an actor for 25 years and Mr Tuan has been one for 17. They are fully capable of taking different roles."

Le Khanh, another Youth Theatre veteran, plays Klea, Xanthus' wife who is secretly in love with Aesop.

The play is filled with ambiguities playing off the famous Aesop fable the Fox and the Grapes, in which a fox decides the grapes he cannot have are probably bad.

No one knows for sure how to read the allegory into the play, which characters represent the fox and which represent the grapes.

Mr Hung said his theatre produces comedies to satisfy people's demands for entertainment and classics for people's edification. Leaving such deep questions unanswered may be part of that edification.

(Source: Viet Nam News)

Source : vietnamnet.vn