by Jim Goodman
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| A procession begins at the Hanoi theater. |
Of all the possible sights and
activities available to a first-time visitor to Hanoi, attendance at a
water-puppet show, a truly authentic indigenous tradition, is all but
obligatory. The architecture of
the city’s temples and public buildings derives from Chinese and European
models. The cuisine and street
life resemble that of Southeast Asian neighbors. Water-puppets, however, are uniquely Vietnamese. No other country has this tradition.
Most visitors catch the show at the water-puppet
theater conveniently located at the top end of Hoàn Kiếm Lake. They sit in ascending rows behind a
pool of water lying in front of a curtained stage. The orchestra of traditional instruments sits to the left of
the pool. The lights dim and the
musicians perform a classical number
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| Ông Tễu, the show's emcee |
as prelude to the show. When they conclude, a larger-than-normal
puppet pops up on the water from behind the curtain and introduces himself as
your emcee Ông Tễu.
After a brief summary of what will follow and encouragement to the
audience to enjoy the show, he scoots behind the curtain and does not reappear.
A variety of skits now
commence. Brightly painted wooden
puppets representing people and animals emerge from behind the curtained
screen, move, march, dance, play, float or thrash on the pool surface,
manipulated by puppeteers standing waist-deep in the water, hidden from view by
the screen. With the puppets’
reflections rippling across the water, the effect is that of a magical swirl of
color, all the better because the source of the colors’ movement cannot be
seen.
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| a vignette of rural life |
Some of the skits are vignettes of
rural life, as befitting a tradition born in a watery environment like the Red
River Delta, with its innumerable streams, ponds and canals. These may include fishing with traps or
with rods and lines or from little boats, making a raft, riding a buffalo,
plowing a field, tending ducks, etc.
Other skits feature dancing phoenixes and energetic dragons. More complex skits involve processions,
either religious ones or that of the successful scholar’s escort home, boat
races, a dance of fairy-goddesses and the famous story of Lê Lợi,
founder of the Lê Dynasty in 1428, returning his sword to the divine golden turtle
of Hoàn Kiếm Lake. At the show’s
finale of writhing dragons, smoke and fireworks, the puppeteers emerge from
behind the screen, wade into the pool in front, and bow to the audience.
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| The Golden Turtle takes the sword back from Lê Lợi |
The show presents a fine sampling
from the repertoire of over a hundred skits and vignettes in the water-puppet
tradition. It is a very slick and
professional performance, carried out mostly by villagers from Nam Chấn, in Nam
Định province, one of the two dozen or so Red River Delta villages that still
maintain their water-puppet tradition. The Nam Chấn ensemble was the one the government chose to
introduce the tradition abroad on a world tour in the early 90s as Vietnam
opened its doors to tourism. The
success and interest aroused by this tour prompted the government to build the
theater beside the lake and hire Nam Chấn puppeteers to handle the
performances. These have now grown
from once nightly to several per day.
No origin tale exists for
water-puppets, but a record exists of an early Lý Dynasty Court show at West
Lake that featured a turtle, with three mountains on its back, that moved
across the water. The other
puppets in this show were conventional rod-puppets, but water-puppets are a
kind of rod-puppet and whether this Lý Court show was the first use of a
water-puppet or not, by the time of the Trần Dynasty in the 13th
century, water-puppet shows were part of Court entertainment for visiting
envoys.
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| water-puppet pavilion at Chùa Thấy |
Besides a pond, the essential
requirement for a water-puppet show is a pavilion on the water. From inside this pavilion, standing in
the water, shielded from view by a split-bamboo screen, the puppeteers
manipulate their puppets. Villages
that maintain the tradition sometimes build permanent pavilions. The most outstanding example is the
graceful 18th century puppet pavilion at Chùa Thấy, west of Hanoi,
which still stages performances during the pagoda’s festival, 5th to
7th days of the 3rd lunar month. Other villages keep a collapsible
canvas pavilion that they erect for shows in their own villages or take with
them when invited to perform elsewhere.
So that the puppet can float easily
and last a long time, the wood used to make it has to be light, durable and
easy to carve. The fig tree that
grew alongside ponds and lakes throughout the Delta fit these
requirements, though carvers had to work quickly on it after cutting it, for it
didn’t stay soft for long. Within
the puppet workshop ordinary and apprentice carvers made the simplest puppets
and the parts for the more complicated ones. Skilled specialists added the faces, costumes and props.
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| portable pavilion erected at the Kiếp Bạc festival |
After completing the carving, the next step was to paint them using the traditional lacquering process, in eight steps, with five days break in between coats of lacquer. The finished product was a lightweight,
colorfast, water-resistant puppet that moved and floated easily and lasted over
fifty years. Some puppets are
relatively simple figures with few movable parts, like people or farm
animals. Fish and dragon puppets,
though, are likely to comprise many linked parts, all the better to make them
wriggle in the water. A
final category of puppet is the prop—the boat, fish trap, altar, loom,
sedan-chair, etc—that is made the same way from the same materials.
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| spouting dragon Chùa Thấy performance |
The visible puppet and the hidden
manipulation rod come together at the base, which thus acts as a fulcrum for
the movement of the puppet. The
base must be kept below the water’s surface to conceal the controlling
mechanism. But it cannot be held
deeper under the water for there will be more resistance moving the rod, more
energy sapped from the puppeteer and the risk of the puppets’ movements losing
their vigor.
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| puppets mounted on manipulation rods |
The simplest manipulation rod is a
pole of wood or bamboo 3.5-4.5 meters long. By thrusting the pole underwater forwards and backwards and
swinging it laterally the handler can make the puppet move around in a given
area, even quite quickly. But the
base also contains string mechanisms attached to the head and limbs from inside
the puppet’s body. By moving the
strings at the same time as the pole, the puppeteer can make the head, neck and
limbs of the puppet move simultaneously.
For larger sized puppets, such as
Ông Tễu,
the emcee of every water-puppet show, as well as for groups of puppets
performing closely together, a manipulation rod is insufficient. In the former case the puppet is too
heavy for a pole. With groups,
like the Eight Fairies, individually held rods would too easily interfere with
each other
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| the Dance of the Fairies |
and the dance of the fairies would be disharmonious. Some skits involve puppets on boats or
puppets doing military maneuvers.
Individual manipulation rods are inappropriate in these circumstances,
too.
Instead of poles, the puppets are
fixed to a sliding platform and this moves along a system of plaited split
bamboo or coconut fiber ropes, connected to submerged stakes in the
manipulation room and out to the staging area of the pond. Waxed strings of plaited hair, coir or
silk attach the parts of the puppets to the framework. If the figures ride in boats, then the
boats themselves are the sliding platforms. Group scenes like the Dance of the Fairies or the depiction
of a naval battle or boat race, requiring coordinated puppet movements, utilize
the sliding platform method of manipulation.
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| ancient battle scene at Chùa Thấy |
The puppets’ ability to maneuver
also depends on its size. Puppets
used for the performances at the theater near Hoàn Kiếm Lake are
larger than those made in the Delta villages that have preserved the
tradition. This enables them to
glide easily across the surface of the water, remaining relatively upright. Those used for the Chùa Thấy
festival, for example, are smaller, more agile but also more difficult to keep
upright and likely to tilt in the water.
With these smaller and lighter puppets, though, the puppeteers can make
them climb a pole and light firecrackers to start the show, even leap through
flaming hoops, something not possible for the puppets in the Hanoi show.
Like the carvers, who pass through a
period of apprenticeship, the puppeteers also undergo a period of
training. Since all such related
skills are imparted at an early age, traditionally girls were kept from such
training, for villagers believed that since women married men from other
villages, they might betray the village’s water-puppet secrets. Since every water-puppet village had
its own individual contribution to the general tradition, it wanted to
differentiate itself from others following the same tradition. Nam Chấn village, the one chosen to
present the water-puppet tradition to the world, was the first to allow women
to become puppeteers. This
attitude has spread, and now it is not unusual to see at least one women
emerging from behind the curtain at the end of a village water-puppet
show.
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| catching fish |
To cover the expenses of both making
the puppets and training for and putting on the show was the responsibility of
the village guild, a crafts organization set up to maintain the tradition. To
meet the guild’s expenses for the annual offerings to its founder and
associated rituals, as well as for the maintenance of equipment, the wood and
paints needed and so forth, the village allots a section of its communal land
to the guild. Not every villager
is a guild member, nor is every member directly involved in the making or
performing of the puppets. Some
join for the prestige of being a guild member and to express their desire to
uphold an ancient tradition. All
members upon joining take an oath to preserve the craft’s local secrets,
confirming it with a drink of rice wine mixed with chicken blood.
Nowadays the main secret preserved
is the manipulation of the puppets, for not only are the puppeteers concealed
by a screen from the audience, no one is allowed to observe them within the
pavilion. The techniques of
manipulation, though, are pretty much the same everywhere. More important is the repertoire. Vignettes of daily life, cavorting
dragons and skits like the procession of the returning scholar or the Dance of
the Fairies are common to all village shows, but the tradition draws on a
variety of sources for the skits.
These include famous scenes from tuồng opera, chèo popular dramas, incidents from
Vietnam’s history and tales from the Chinese classic The Three Kingdoms. To
surprise their own villagers and impress visitors or “spies” from rivals, the
guilds constantly seek new material and keep it hidden until ready for
performance.
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| festival performance at Nam Chấn |
And in the presentation of the skits
their village artists touch on all those aspects of life they all have in
common. They perform scenes with mythical
animals or religious figures known to everyone in the audience. They depict tales from their history
and mythology with which the spectators are quite familiar. They show festival activities like those
so many fellow villagers have witnessed.
And above all, they perform the vignettes of everyday life that remind
their audience of their very own village, always the best place on earth in
which to live.
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| The puppeteers take a bow in the Hanoi theater. |
° ° °
A water-puppet performance is part of the program for my cultural-historical tour itinerary for Vietnam. See http://deltatoursvietnamcom for details.
A water-puppet performance is part of the program for my cultural-historical tour itinerary for Vietnam. See http://deltatoursvietnamcom for details.
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