First Cải Lương performance in English to premiere soon

It is the type of traditional music that is difficult even for natives to fully understand, let alone foreigners who speak little to no Vietnamese.

For the first time ever, non-Vietnamese speakers will have a golden opportunity to enjoy the first Cải Lương performance in English on August 13th, 2011 at the Hanoi Theater of Cải Lương.

The play “ The King's Fate”, which is performed by artists of the very theater, will tell audiences about the eventful life of Ly Chieu Hoang, the last empress of the Ly dynasty. Ly Chieu Hoang, whose real name is Ly Chieu Thanh, was the daughter of king Ly Hue Tong. Because the king did not have any son, princess Ly Chieu Thanh became the empress (a rare event in feudal Vietnam). However, after marrying Tran Canh and giving up the throne to her husband under the forceful arrangement of Tran Thu Do, power transferred from the Lys to the Trans, heralding the start of the Tran dynasty. In an even more tragic turn, after ten years of marriage without children, Ly Chieu Hoang had to give up husband to her sister. The adapted performance will retell the events of her life in vivid detail.

Foreign audiences will use headphone to listen to available translation and recording in English following the unfolding content of the performance taking place on the stage.

The show can be a start of a history in the making. But critics have also voiced their concern over the ingenuinity of such performance, for translation can never fully describe fully every aspect of the native art, which is never meant for non-natives in the first place either.

However the outcome may turn out, the coming performance will lead the way to bring many other Vietnamese traditional performances closer to foreign audience.