Compared to other traditional arts, puppetry, especially water puppetry, is attractive to audiences. But this art is only attractive to foreigners and child audiences, not Vietnamese adults.

Since the Hanoi-based Central Water Puppetry Theatre joined hands with tourism firms, its artists have no time to relax since the demand for water puppetry shows is very high. The theatre currently offers 3-4 shows daily, serving hundreds of viewers, mainly foreign visitors.

The biggest difficulty for the puppetry theatre is how to win the hearts of Vietnamese audiences, especially adults. Some theatres have not only arranged traditional plays but also modern ones and used state-of-the-art light technology, music and decoration to make their puppet shows more attractive to audiences, for example a show named Hon Que, which won a gold medal at an international puppetry festival in Hanoi this February.

However, besides shows at schools, puppet theatres are not destinations of Vietnamese audiences and they can’t compete with music or fashion shows for popularity.

Vuong Duy Bien, Director of the Central Puppetry Theatre, said a well-trained team of artists is a pre-condition for the development of this art in Vietnam.

Bien said Vietnam doesn’t have a school specialising in puppetry art. Most of the theatre’s artists are recruited from the State and Movie University’s Traditional Art Faculty, and have to be-retrained from 1-4 years to be able to perform some basic puppetry shows.

Vietnamese puppetry’s fame has been brought about by senior artists, who are very old now. Puppetry theatres now need a new generation of artists.

Bien revealed that two years ago the theatre began training puppetry artists itself and the first group of artists trained in this form are very skilful. But Bien said the theatre had to keep the secret of this training programme because it is not officially permitted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

The theatre wants the Ministry to pay more attention to puppetry and allow the theatre to do this job. Bien also said that if the programme is approved, he will invite leading puppet artists at home and abroad to teach both traditional and modern puppetry arts.

Another challenge for puppetry art is the serious shortage of puppetry directors and set designers. A large number of puppet shows are based on legends and foreign stories. To make a bright future for puppetry, it is necessary to have the state’s assistance.