artLIVE – On April 19, the event ‘Xe truyen bui ra’ took place at Ca Phe Thu Bay, marking the emotional return to Vietnam of writer – director Nguyen Thi Minh Ngoc.
On a bright sunny morning, ‘Xe truyen bui ra’ opened like a door leading into the vibrant world of art, where the characters no longer lie still on the page, but exist on stage, coming alive through each performance of the artists – close companions of writer Nguyen Thi Minh Ngoc.
The event was organized by the Vietnamese Women’s Publishing House in collaboration with Ca Phe Thu Bay, with the participation of famous artists such as writer Nguyen Thi Minh Ngoc, Meritorious Artist Thanh Loc, actress Minh Phuong, director Leon Le, actor Minh Du and many special guests.
Nguyen Thi Minh Ngoc – The writer ‘holds a storm in the palm of her small hand‘
Writer Nguyen Thi Minh Ngoc, who is still known as ‘the storyteller – on paper, on screen, on stage’ is a veteran in the Vietnamese art world. Born in 1953 in Ba Ria – Vung Tau, graduated from the University of Theatre and Cinema in Ho Chi Minh City in 1980, she was a lecturer at this very school.
With more than 30 staged plays, over 70 traditional and contemporary scripts, hundreds of television scripts and theater research works. In particular, she is the first Vietnamese person to bring Vietnamese works to the Off Broadway stage in New York (USA) as the author, director and actress of the plays “The Missing Woman” (The Lost Woman, 2008), “We are”… (We are…, 2011).
Poet Nguyen Duc Tung once commented on writer Nguyen Thi Minh Ngoc: “Minh Ngoc’s special point is in the art of character building and the natural, simple but attractive writing style, very Southern, easy to understand, a bit popular… Minh Ngoc’s stories have many dialogues, and perhaps because of her experience on stage as a director and actress, her dialogues are flexible, almost directly described”.
‘Spring Lake’ – The feelings written in the ink of women’s memories
On this return, writer Nguyen Thi Minh Ngoc brought with her ‘Spring Lake’ – A collection of short stories carefully selected by her from nearly 80 works written over many decades.
The work is like a feminine, gentle but not weak flow, with 21 short stories that deeply and multi-dimensionally explore the fate of modern women. When flipping through ‘Spring Lake’, readers can easily recognize the author’s characters as contemporary women, from young girls, lovers, mothers, adventurers, noble people, to miserable people, slaves, and sacrificers…
Each short story takes the female character as the center, borrowing family background, social context and era to feel and peel off their psychological layers at many ages.
Also from the anchor point of the female characters, the author leads the reader to delve into the relationship between the individual and the community, between identity and society, where life outside is constantly changing, echoing the silent disturbances in the ’emotional lake’ of each character.
In Spring Lake, there is a short excerpt that is cinematic and heart-wrenching like this: “I suddenly stopped. I saw the water and its cool breath, charming-like-never-been-so-charming-like-it-had-been-so-charming-like-it-had-been-so-charming-like-it-had-been-so-ever. I looked down at the mirror of the water. I saw Le. I saw ‘my heroin’. I saw the singer crying. I saw the little dog absent-mindedly at the bottom of the lake. And I saw somewhere about two hundred and fifty-one thousand and seventy-nine other girls sticking their heads out to look at themselves in the mirror of the water like me… And I stopped in time the desire to dip myself in the cool water. I am afraid of crowded places people…”
Each sentence, each dot gently touches the character’s appearance and mood, where the woman appears fully in all shades: hurt and desire, weak and strong, even in the quietest moments but echoing deep inner strength.
The event ‘Tearing the story out’ has ended but its echoes still resonate, gentle and clear like the drops of water in ‘Spring Lake’. Perhaps, what remains in the hearts of the participants is a deep emotion, aroused from the heart that knows how to vibrate before the fragile and multifaceted beauty of human beings.
Photo: Vietnamese Women’s Publishing House
