As the cultural life of Ho Chi Minh City has important changes in the process of industrialization, modernization, and global integration. This is also the stage where the doctoral student is interested in learning more about drama in the cultural life of Ho Chi Minh City.
4. Research questions and hypotheses
4.1. Research questions
During the implementation process, we temporarily posed some research questions as a basis for implementation.
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The first question is, how does the cultural life of Ho Chi Minh City affect the Ho Chi Minh City drama stage?
Next question, what role/function does drama play in the cultural life of Ho Chi Minh City?
Third question, what are the solutions for the development direction of drama in the cultural life of Ho Chi Minh City?
4.2. Research hypothesis
During the implementation process, we also put forward some research hypotheses for the thesis topic, specifically as follows:
Hypothesis 1: The cultural life of Ho Chi Minh City contributes to creating unique characteristics of Ho Chi Minh City's drama stage, both in terms of organization of activities and artistic products.
Hypothesis 2: Drama plays an important role in the cultural life of Ho Chi Minh City by meeting public needs, reflecting and contributing to shaping urban culture.
Third hypothesis: To maintain and develop drama in the cultural life of Ho Chi Minh City, it is necessary to integrate institutional strength as well as resources of relevant parties including government levels, performance units and art audiences.
5. Research methods and sources of materials
5.1. Research method
The thesis mainly uses the cultural studies approach, besides also considering the interdisciplinary combination between Theatre Studies and Cultural Studies. This approach allows the researcher to have a general, comprehensive view of a cultural and artistic phenomenon, on the basis of considering the interactions between many different factors.
In addition, we use some research methods such as:
- Systemic method: Systemic method considers Vietnamese drama as a whole, city drama is a part of that whole. Its existence and development will contribute to ensuring that our country's drama operates well, bringing certain effectiveness. Expanding, drama can be seen as one of the cultural elements along with other elements such as: music, cinema, dance, literature, etc. It contributes to enriching the country's cultural and artistic background.
- Comparative method: The thesis uses the comparative method to find out the unique and common features between the drama stages in the city, between the drama stages of Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, thereby determining the unique features, creating the identity of the city's drama stage. Using this method also helps the research not only point out the current situation - accepting the nature of the problem but also recognizing the changes, the things that need to be eliminated.
- Analysis and synthesis method: this method is used in the process of processing documents as well as explaining the arguments raised in the thesis.
- Sociological investigation method: the thesis conducts a survey through a sociological survey. This will be practical data to increase the persuasiveness of the analysis and interpretation in the thesis.
- Combining qualitative methods such as: participation, in-depth interviews. During the implementation process, we attended a number of performances on stages. In addition, combining in-depth interviews with a number of artists, stage managers, and audiences. The implementation of these methods aims to contribute to providing more arguments for the thesis, explaining and clarifying the remaining open issues.
5.2. Sources of information
During the process of doing the thesis, we used sources of documents such as:
- Interdisciplinary sources: Culture, History, Politics, Society, Psychology...
- Sources of documents related to the actual activities of Ho Chi Minh City theater: websites of performing units, magazines and articles criticizing theater...
- Source of information from participation, interviews with artists and audiences.
6. Scientific and practical significance
6.1. Scientific significance
Applying theories on drama, cultural life, functionalist theories, theories on cultural regions and regional cultures, and cultural change theories to study and contribute to the study of the characteristics and roles of drama in the cultural life of Ho Chi Minh City in a systematic way, both diachronically and synchronously. In addition, the thesis explores drama in the city's cultural life from a cultural studies perspective. This is also a new aspect that, according to the researcher, has not been mentioned in many works. With this approach, the author can explain some issues of the city's drama in a more novel way, paying more attention to the impact of cultural factors on art.
6.2. Practical significance
The thesis can contribute research and teaching materials on drama in the cultural life of Ho Chi Minh City in particular, and artistic activities in the culture of modern cities in Vietnam in general.
In addition, based on practical research, the thesis contributes to proposing development directions for drama in the cultural life of Ho Chi Minh City.
7. Thesis layout
In addition to the Introduction (6 pages), Conclusion (4 pages), References (12 pages) and Appendix (46 pages), the thesis consists of 3 chapters:
Chapter 1 : Overview of research situation, theoretical basis and practice (42 pages).
Chapter 2 : Interaction between drama and cultural life of Ho Chi Minh City (46 pages).
Chapter 3 : The issue of developing drama in the cultural life of Ho Chi Minh City (32 pages).
Chapter 1
OVERVIEW OF RESEARCH SITUATION, THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL BASIS
1.1. Overview of research situation
Ho Chi Minh City is a place where many vibrant cultural and artistic activities take place. One of the art forms that has left an impression on the public and brought a new color to the spiritual life of the people here is drama. In 1997, when the socialization policy was implemented according to Resolution No. 90-CP dated August 21, 1997 of the Government, it had a strong impact and brought about many changes, especially in the two big cities of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City - where the main concentration of the country's major drama stages is. In that context, at first when the drama stages in Hanoi were still bewildered and wary of change, the strong participation and many successes of the drama stages in Ho Chi Minh City can be considered a remarkable highlight. And the drama stages here really brought a new atmosphere to the spiritual and cultural life of the people. Therefore, studying Drama in the cultural life of Ho Chi Minh City (from 2010 to 2020) is, in our opinion, an interesting and practically meaningful topic.
With the method of synthesizing secondary documents through existing studies of previous authors, on the topic, issues related to the content of the thesis and the experimental method, we hope to have a comprehensive view of the topic and see what has been done from previous works, as well as the limitations and shortcomings that have not been mentioned. This is the basis for the thesis to have more important discoveries and additions in terms of practicality and science.
In this overview, we focus on some main contents such as: 1) Research works on Vietnamese drama stage; 2) Works
Research projects on Ho Chi Minh City's drama stage; 3) Research projects on Ho Chi Minh City's cultural life; 4) Research projects on drama stage in Ho Chi Minh City's cultural life.
1.1.1. Overview of research works on Vietnamese drama stage
According to the history of Vietnamese theater, the birth of drama originated from the desire of Western-educated intellectuals to introduce a genre of Western theater to Vietnamese audiences. Under the French colonial period, Vietnamese society and theater arts changed a lot. Traditional theaters of the nation such as tuong and cheo could no longer meet the diverse needs of the public in urban areas. Looking from the context at that time, it can be seen that there was a gap in theater arts at that time. Drama was born, bringing a new flavor, filling the above gaps.
In the period 1921 - 1930, under the direct influence of French theater, drama and dramatic literature were formed. However, it was not completely separated from the traditional theater of the nation.
The period 1930 - 1945 took place in the context of the formation of a cultural context associated with the reform of spoken drama and the maturity of national dramatic literature in Vietnam, in order to meet the demands of the new era. New literary works by writers of the romantic literary movement were born, adapted into plays to be performed on stage. The Vietnamese public enthusiastically welcomed them. Spoken drama at that time was closely associated with and a part of Vietnamese literature. However, spoken drama still had a certain development in ideology and art as a genre.
The popular range of spoken drama is the North with big cities, while in the South, the reformed opera genre is very developed due to the lifestyle, psychology and musical traditions of the indigenous people.
The problem of drama was mentioned earliest in the Modern Writers of the
Criticism of Vu Ngoc Phan (1942) [67]. The author has dedicated a section to “playwrights” as a recognition of their achievements and this genre. From comparing drama with poetry, he pointed out the characteristics of drama. The development process of drama was identified by him through the authors considered famous in that period. Vu Dinh Long with “Chen thuoc doc” was like a pioneer for a new genre. Besides, Vi Huyen Dac with the work Kim tien (1932), Ong ki cop (1938) and Doan Phu Tu - a playwright for young people are also prominent names. From the author's summary, it can be seen that the drama genre is viewed as a young genre and has not had any outstanding achievements. Vu Ngoc Phan has pointed out quite clearly the origin and genre characteristics of drama. However, in general, it is still a simplified view with limitations of the time.
In Vietnamese Literature History Outline (1943) [28], researcher Duong Quang Ham considered drama as a genre originating from tradition. Tuong and Cheo were recognized by the author as "ancient drama". The spoken drama that we watch is considered by him to be "a drama written in prose". Duong Quang Ham's understanding is not compatible with our understanding of spoken drama today, which is the identification of spoken drama with the traditional theatrical genres of our country in the past.
In the new simplified Vietnamese literary history by Pham The Ngu (1961, 1963, 1965) [62] - a theoretical research work on drama in Vietnam, according to which, drama is envisioned with basic characteristics quite similar to our understanding today. The author introduced an important concept of "dialogue drama" and showed the process of drama from its beginning to becoming a complete genre with ups and downs and multifaceted features.
The first monograph on drama is probably the work Initial study of the history of Vietnamese drama before the August Revolution by scholars Phan Ke Hoanh and Huynh Ly (1978) [33]. This work attempted to
reconstructing the entire life of the theater from the beginning until 1945 according to the following criteria: the situation of creation associated with the names of the authors; performance activities associated with the names of the directors, time and place of the performance; the attitude of the public towards the drama activities in each period. The important contribution of this work is to recreate the developments of the drama in each period as well as to generalize the steps and trends of the drama in each process. However, looking at the complexity of drama from the eyes of political struggle activities, it does not ensure objectivity in the author's comments and assessments.
In the textbook Vietnamese Literature in the transitional period 1900-1930 by two authors Tran Dinh Huou and Le Chi Dung (1988) [44], drama was also mentioned. Accordingly, the authors outlined the general spirit of the plays and put forward quite convincing arguments about the superiority of drama over traditional theatrical forms, or the encroachment and mutual influence between a new genre and genres that have existed for a long time.
Researcher Phan Trong Thuong in Historical issues of Vietnamese dramatic literature (second half of the 20th century) (1996) [106] presented a new interpretation in which he explained the characteristics of drama by placing it in the relationship of East-West exchange, between rural and urban areas or the difference in the habit of enjoying traditional theatrical forms with the habit of enjoying art in the Western way.
In the article "A century of innovation of Vietnamese Drama" (2003) [93], [94], author Tat Thang pointed out that the appearance of drama in Vietnam was the simultaneous convergence of four factors, which are: 1) The pressure of the trend of approaching realism in Vietnamese literature and art in the early 20th century; 2) The result of the French-Vietnamese cultural exchange in which Vietnamese culture accepted French culture, specifically Vietnamese drama, influenced by classical French drama of the 20th century.