HÀ NỘI – A stage play about a stormy love triangle will open the 2024 Hà Nội Stage Festival next week.

The play Khoảng Trống (The Void) is a turbulent and tragic love story involving intellectuals. To preserve their reputation and maintain peace for themselves and their families, the characters suppress their feelings, forcing themselves to accept and respect one another while enduring a precarious, calculated and deceitful happiness.

A scene from the play 'Khoảng Trống' (The Void) by the Hà Nội Stage Play Theatre. Photo courtesy of the Hà Nội Stage Play Theatre

Artists from the Hà Nội Stage Play Theatre will perform at the opening.

Theatre’s director, People’s Artist Trung Hiếu, said the artists are eagerly rehearsing for the festival and see it is a 'playground' for professional artistic units reflecting the performing arts activities of the capital.

Taking place from November 1-9, the festival will present plays by theatres from Hà Nội and neighbouring provinces and cities.

The shows have clear themes, ideas and content, vividly reflecting various aspects of Việt Nam’s social life, country and people. The festival’s organising board encourages entries that connect to the history, culture and the people of Hà Nội. These works should highlight beauty and human values, condemn negativity, evil, and ignobility and positively impact social life, clearly demonstrating the functions of awareness, education and aesthetics.

Director of Hà Nội Department of Culture and Sports, Đỗ Đình Hồng, said that the festival is an opportunity to enhance the cultural and artistic value of the capital, educate and promote the patriotic tradition and the glorious revolutionary history of Hà Nội, a city with a thousand years of civilization.

“The festival serves as a chance for artistic units to exchange, interact, and learn from each other during the creative process, aiming to inspire the creation of many high-quality works to serve the people of the capital in particular and audiences nationwide in the future,” he told a press conference in Hà Nội on Monday.

A scene from the play 'Ông Không Phải Là Bố Tôi' (You Aren’t My Father) by the Youth Theatre. Photo courtesy of the Youth Theatre

Alongside the stage play Khoảng Trống presented on November 1, the public will have chance to enjoy several other works of different art forms such as chèo (Northern traditional opera), cải lương (reformed opera) and puppetry.

The works include Hồ Xuân Hương by the Hải Phòng Chèo Theatre, the Cánh Cửa Khép Hờ (The Half-Open Door) by the Việt Nam Cải Lương Theatre, Ông Không Phải Là Bố Tôi (You Aren’t My Father) by the Youth Theatre, General Võ Nguyên Giáp by Military Chèo Theatre, Hoàng Đế Cờ Lau (Reed Grass King) by the Thăng Long Puppetry Theatre and Người Hát Ả Đào (Blind Busker's Singing) by the Hà Nội Chèo Theatre. VNS