Are there any written Vietnamese Water Puppet scripts?
Question by superduper: Are there any written Vietnamese Water Puppet scripts?
I need to do a formal paper on Vietnamese water puppetry, in which I need a script to show how i would apply the concepts I learned. Does anyone know if there are written scripts, or are the stories just passed down and performed from knowledge?
Best answer:
Answer by puppetsinmelbourne.com.au
From what little I’ve read about it, the stories are most likely word-of-mouth to the next generation of puppeteers. They probably do write them down these days, but I suspect that they would not be published openly, but kept for archival and training purposes. Not much is available online about this form of puppetry, other than scant descriptions and the occasional news item about a current show/company.
I’m pretty sure I have this same book (the cover is different but it sounds the same):
http://www.amazon.com/Vietnamese-Traditional-Water-Puppetry-Nguyen/dp/B0015OHRG0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256113264&sr=8-1
In it a lot of common themes are discussed about the plays: historical or social stories, stories about life on the land (ie. water buffalo races, farming, etc.), and of course mythological stories too.
You might want to contact this puppetry group, or at least check out the info on their site:
http://www.thanglongwaterpuppet.org/
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