Tourism keeps water puppets afloat
HANOI — In a darkened theater in central Hanoi, a wooden dragon emerges from a pool to the sound of cymbals crashing in a traditional water puppet show that lures hundreds of tourists daily but is largely shunned by locals.
Backstage behind a thin bamboo screen, around 20 puppeteers slosh around waist-deep in rubber overalls wielding the marionettes with long rods.
“The puppets are pretty heavy ... and the water also creates resistance,” said puppeteer Nguyen Thu Hoai, who swapped her galoshes for flipflops between sold-out shows.
“But our years of training and experience helps us control them,” added Hoai, who like many of her colleagues graduated from Hanoi’s College of Theatre and Cinema.
Some of the puppets weigh as much as 10 kilograms and the largest ones, like the meter-tall fairy, require four people to manipulate.
The shows at Hanoi’s Thang Long theater have become a staple on the well-trodden tourist circuit and draw thousands every week, including many first-time viewers.
“I’ve never seen a puppet show that way with the water,” US tourist Caroline Thomoff said after a show.
Vietnam is the birthplace of the centuries-old art form that emerged in the northern rice paddies as entertainment for farmers.
The earliest record of the performances is on a 12th century stele that still stands at a pagoda in northern Ha Nam province, but historians say water puppetry likely originated even earlier.
The shows traditionally featured age-old fables and mythical lore, like the famous Hanoi parable about a Vietnamese king’s treasured sword that was used to fight off invaders.
The tropes haven’t changed much, and neither have the hand-carved wooden figures of animals, boats, farmers or fish painted in brilliant golds, reds and greens, according to Chu Luong, the director of Thang Long theater.
Despite its ancient roots — or perhaps because of them — the shows draw little attention from local Vietnamese viewers, especially millennials.
More than half of Vietnam’s 93 million people are under 30 and often prefer their entertainment in digital form.
Yet as interest wanes at home, there are signs water puppetry may be gaining traction abroad.
Canadian Director Robert Lepage returned to Toronto this year with an adaptation of Stravinsky’s opera The
Nightingale, in which the orchestra pit was transformed into a pool of water for singers-come-puppeteers commanding marionettes.