Women Online Magazine - Watching the way Bach Tuyet acted and sang in the plays 'Tuyet Tinh Ca' (Great Love Songs), 'Tan Nuong That' (Ms. Tan's Mansion), playwright Hoa Phuong immediately saw the paradoxes in her creativity from which later he did not hesitate to call her 'the precious gem of cai luong'.

Playing a character with a rebellious personality, artist Bach Tuyet portrayed skillfully the transformation of the state of mind in subtle moments – from a girl with a couldn’t-care-less attitude to a caring daughter when Le Thi Truong An met with Mr. Huong, the chief of police (People’s Artist Ut Tra On). The layer of refractory was stripped off revealing a beautiful soul with a bitter sacrifice.

People’s Artist Bach Tuyet

Ms. Tan has many short-lived love affairs, but not until when she met Danh (Artist Thanh Sang) then she not only found true love, but also humanity in the desire to seek kindness and compassion. Artist Bach Tuyet is aware of her character’s behaviours and is always in control of her feelings by not letting brooding, sentimental, and soppy emotions take over the character. Breaking away from the usual performing “habit”, Bach Tuyet brings in a brilliant and modernized acting and singing, commented by Professor Tran Van Khe about her.

The Life of Ms. Luu (composed by Tran Huu Trang) is a classic play which resonates many pieces of classical stage. The scene that makes the audience chilled is the handing over the walking cane. The scene was laid out without a song, but with a very short dialogue People’s Artist Diep Lang threw each and every word at his costar. On the other side, Bach Tuyet acted in silence. “It’s been nineteen, twenty years, what are you waiting for? What else is left for you to wait? Bones of the father has already decayed, not to mention his son’s.”

The moment councilor Thang stroke the baton cane on the floor was also when Luu looked up and burst out crying. Though this is the shortest scene, yet it results in such a deep and powerful inner feelings that it becomes an epitome of psychological acting in typical situations.

Whether or not one will be successful or loved by the audience, but with nearly 60 years in the performance art, Bach Tuyet is the one who dares to “despise old trails and explore new paths” like Denis Diderot, a French art critic, who challenged himself to the world at the beginning of the Age of Enlightenment.

Around 1998-1999, during the training of cai luong in the southern region, artist Huu Quoc said to me that he respected artist Bach Tuyet the most among the artists of the golden generation, because she dares to step out of the castle of the prominent roles, and ventures on the new roads.

As Quoc just finished, Bach Tuyet’s singing voice came out from the auditorium room teaching the students. Why did she choose a Northern tone in a vong co song? It was Legends of Waiting song (written by Le Duy Hanh) telling a woman anxiously waiting to meet her loved one as she recalled the whistle blowing from the train under the moonlight … The melancholy and glamour in her voice made an impressive prelude to the song. I and Quoc stopped talking.

Solo Acting

The audiences tend to have “faith” in the lifelong commitment of their favourite dual pair, and are innocently upset when the pair does not fulfil their wish. Bach Tuyet has co-starred with Hung Cuong, Thanh Duoc, Tan Tai, Minh Phung, Thanh Sang, Minh Vuong, Thanh Tuan … Then one day, she performed solo on the stage. An incident or an arrangement of the progenitors? She was the only character in a series of one-character plays of author Le Duy Hanh since 1992 – Solo Acting, The Queen Of Two Kings, Monologue Night …

When talking about stage performance, one usually thinks there are at least two actors interacting with each other. But there she was with her own shadow on a round wooden platform with a radius not more than 2 meters for over an hour performing.

In Solo Acting play, she undertakes four roles: a noble, a sycophant, a king and an actor. The Queen of Two Kings, another version of Empress Duong Van Nga, was a monologue of the queen with a chancellor, a military commander, and a general. In Monologue Night, she played an actress analyzing the role of Ly Chieu Hoang crying and laughing in the midst of the overthrowing of the Ly dynasty and the passing of the throne to the Tran according to Tran Thu Do’s political plot.

In the psychological dichotomy to demonstrate the mentality of each character, Bach Tuyet has introduced a brand new way of acting in cai luong that, after all, is the experiment from the script to music, design, and staging. The walk against the wind turned out to be the journey of creativity liberating people to dominate the freedom of beauty. It can only be done when the artist’s profession is effectively utilized and liberated.

People’s Artists Phung Ha and Bach Tuyet

One summer day in July 2009, almost at daybreak, Bach Tuyet received People’s Artist Phung Ha home along with People’s Artist Nam Hung and his family. She applied makeup on her teacher, then embraced the face that had devoted her whole life to cai luong. In the absence of guitar, drum, and theater light, two female singers with thousands of roles said goodbye for last tour of life and death …

Le Huyen Ai My – Women Online Magazine (19/09/2018)