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The underlying messages
hidden in Tuong’s masks.
A beautiful r ddle by Do Hoang Anh Thi
T he most prominent The masks convey many emotions and feelings of life. Each
feature
characteristic
mask is a story, a character, a different personality. Not only
of the art of “Tuong”
compared to other performing distinguishing through beard, hair, and clothes in order to
differentiate the cowardly from the brave, to know who is
arts is that the actor must good and who is evil. That all is clearly shown in every detail
dress up in “Tuong” faces. of the colours painted on the face as colours are known to
Among all types of theatrical be largely associated with emotions and feelings. This type
productions, the costumes of of art form can arouse audiences’ effective responses.
Tuong are the most elaborate
because classical singing is For example, Black is the colour always use for
an art subject with very high straightforward, upright martial arts generals like Truong Phi,
Ta Ngoc Lam; red indicates loyalty like Quang Ton, Ly Phung
feature that makes Tuong very Minh.
impressive is to draw a mask on
the actor’s face: They transform
into the character through the Each mask is a
mask. Each face expresses all
estimation. Therefore, a special “
the emotions ranging from the story, a character, a
good to the evil personality of different personality
“
a person.
Each character in the play has a typical, consistent
character from the beginning to the end of the play.
Experienced viewers only need to take a look at the mask to
know whether the character is good or bad.
Artist La Thanh Hung, a respectable director and Tuong
performer, have once shared that a Tuong mask has its own
set of rules, standards, and principles. Drawing a beautiful
mask is not easy. Hence, regarding the soul of the Tuong
characters, each mask can be considered a work of art that
deeply contains beauty in national aesthetics.
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