Vietnamese theatre, and the three forms behind the costumes
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Almost every visitor sees exactly one piece of Vietnamese theatre: an hour of water puppets in Hanoi. It is a genuine village art, and it is the least of what the country stages.
Behind it sit three living forms, all with costumes like the one above, and almost no foreign audience.
What are the three forms?
Court opera, folk opera and the southern reinvention of both.
| Form | Where it belongs | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Tuong, or hat boi | The court, now festivals and state theatres | Classical opera, painted faces, winged hats |
| Cheo | The northern villages | Folk opera, sung and satirical, comic roles |
| Cai luong | Saigon and the delta, from the 1920s | Reformed opera, amplified, closest to popular drama |
| Nha nhac | Hue | Court music rather than theatre, on the UNESCO list |
What is tuong like?
Formal, loud and legible if you know the code. Faces are painted to say what a character is before he opens his mouth: red for loyalty, white for treachery. The winged court hat is the shape you have already seen in every photograph of Vietnamese performance.
The stories are dynastic: loyalty to a throne, a general's betrayal, a family destroyed by duty. Tuong is the oldest of the three and the least performed, so most encounters with it happen at a festival rather than in a theatre.
What is cheo?
The northern village form, and the funniest. Cheo is sung and performed in the round on a mat rather than a stage. It runs on stock characters — the clown, the scholar, the shrew — who comment on the action and on the audience.
Cheo survives in the delta provinces around Hanoi and in a handful of state companies. A village performance at a spring festival is the real thing, and the festivals guide has the weeks those happen.
What is cai luong?
The one still drawing a crowd. Cai luong grew in Saigon and the Mekong Delta from about the 1920s. It took traditional music and added spoken drama, romance plots, painted scenery, and later microphones and film-style effects.
Cai luong is the most accessible of the three for an outsider, because it behaves like popular theatre rather than ritual. The Tran Huu Trang theatre in Ho Chi Minh City is where to look for it.
Can you follow any of it?
Not the words. There are no subtitles, and the singing is in a register even Vietnamese audiences follow by familiarity. A plot summary read beforehand is the difference between an hour of spectacle and an hour of confusion.
Treat it the way you would opera in a language you do not speak. Watch the costumes, the hands and the orchestra, and let the story go.
Where do you actually see one?
Three cities, and a village if you are lucky with the dates.
Hanoi has the state companies for cheo and tuong in small theatres around the centre, most of them seating a few hundred and none of them on the tour circuit. Ho Chi Minh City has cai luong at the Tran Huu Trang theatre, which is where the form's audience still is. Hue stages nha nhac, the court music, in the citadel and on the river boats, usually in 45-minute programmes for visitors.
The village version is better and harder to catch. Spring festivals in the delta provinces put cheo troupes on temple forecourts through the first three lunar months, and nobody sells tickets.
Where does it fit a trip?
As one evening, for the curious, and not as a sight to tick. Tickets at a state theatre often run 100,000 to 300,000 dong and the houses are rarely full. The water puppet theatre sells out nightly at similar prices, which is the whole contrast in one line.
If an evening of this appeals, the museums guide covers the daytime version of the same interest, and the Museum of Ethnology in Hanoi is where the village forms turn up at weekends.
FAQ
What kinds of theatre does Vietnam have?
Three stage forms and one puppet form. Tuong is the classical court opera with painted faces, cheo is northern folk opera that is satirical and sung, cai luong is the southern reformed opera born in the 1920s, and water puppetry is the one every visitor sees.
What is tuong?
Classical opera, also called hat boi, performed at court and now mostly at festivals and a few theatres. The faces are painted to signal character, the winged court hats are unmistakable, and the plots are loyalty, duty and dynastic betrayal.
What is cai luong?
The southern form, invented around the 1920s in the Mekong Delta and Saigon, mixing traditional music with spoken drama and, later, amplification and film-style staging. It is the most popular of the three and the most alive.
Can you follow it without Vietnamese?
Not the words, and mostly not the plot. What carries is the costume, the music and the physical acting, so treat it as an hour of spectacle rather than a play, and read a summary before the lights go down.
Where can you see a performance?
Hanoi for cheo and tuong at the small state theatres, Ho Chi Minh City for cai luong at the Tran Huu Trang theatre, and Hue for the court music, nha nhac, which UNESCO lists. Festivals in the villages are where the forms are least staged for visitors.
How much does a ticket cost?
Far less than the water puppets, and that is the odd part. A state theatre seat often runs 100,000 to 300,000 dong, and the houses are rarely full, because these forms are not on the visitor circuit at all.
Is Vietnamese theatre worth an evening?
For anyone curious about the culture rather than the sights, yes, once. It is not a polished tourist product, which is exactly its appeal and also why it needs some preparation to enjoy.