Huu Chau 'entices' students to love Vietnamese history

Huu Chau speaks before his students' graduation exam - Photo: LINHDOAN

Performing historical plays, especially Vietnamese historical plays, is extremely difficult even for professional actors. What makes Huu Chau "force" his students who have only studied for a few years to do this difficult job?

Practice reading history books for students

In training classes, when graduating, students only need to find an available script, practice and demonstrate their abilities on stage.

As for the 20 students of the advanced class 1 at Hong Van stage, with the monologue competition format, teacher Huu Chau asked the students to find documents themselves, choose their favorite Vietnamese historical characters, then write their own scripts, practice their characters and give their assignments to the teacher.

The teacher will only allow the test if he likes it. If he doesn't like it, he will ask to do something else.

So the young people had to explore and develop their characters. The 20 entries in the competition night titled "Listen to me tell about my country's history" brought to the audience the feelings and confidences of many characters such as Tran Thu Do, Phan Thanh Gian, Bui Thi Xuan, Tran Ich Tac, Tran Canh, Dang Thi Hue, Nguyen Anh, Nguyen Thi Anh, Princess An Tu, Nguyen Trai...

Each student performs the character for about 10 minutes, but sometimes it takes a month of preparation. And the person who has the hardest time is still the one who "sets up" this arduous exam.

After many days of continuously wrestling on the practice floor with his students with 20 test papers, Huu Chau wanted to... lose his voice! But he did not hear any complaints, only a truly happy smile.

Performing Vietnamese historical drama is extremely difficult. Whether or not the character is good or not will be experienced gradually, but for now I am happy because I have trained the children to read books about Vietnamese history and start to love Vietnamese history. For ordinary people, loving Vietnamese history is good, but for a future artist, knowing how to love and understand Vietnamese history and conveying that love to the audience is even more meaningful.

Huu Chau

Student Ha Minh Man was praised for his role as Do Anh Vu - Photo: LINHDOAN

Does anyone remember me?

Among the generation of veteran theater artists of Ho Chi Minh City who are still active today, Huu Chau is highly appreciated for many Vietnamese historical figures such as Nguyen Trai, Ly Dao Thanh, Vo Cong... Each of his characters shows his own creativity and mark.

Huu Chau expressed that he loves reading Vietnamese history books. When he became a singer, he thought that he had not done anything for the country, so with his acting ability, he searched for good historical figures to portray, reminding future generations of the people who made history for the nation.

Being a descendant of the Thanh Minh - Thanh Nga family, Huu Chau refined the characters from reformed opera to transfer to spoken drama.

And now, not only does he "entice" students to love Vietnamese history, he also wants to pass on the gestures, dialogue, and character portrayals that he has painstakingly researched over the past several decades to young people.

Artist Hong Van thanks Huu Chau for his wholeheartedly passing on his love of Vietnamese history to young people - Photo: L.DOAN

Artist Hong Van emotionally said: "I watched and choked up when the character Princess An Tu exclaimed: It's been more than 700 years, does anyone still remember me?

There are many great characters in Vietnamese history. Vietnamese people must know Vietnamese history. Don't let them be forgotten. And today, Mr. Chau taught future actors the responsibility to pass on and spread the love of Vietnamese history to the audience."

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/huu-chau-du-hoc-tro-me-su-viet-20240502092650357.htm