New Voices of Hanoi: Puppets, Shadows and Urban Change in ToLo Puppet Theatre’s Thổ địa

Qiao Zhangweijing*

BIPAM Festival Bangkok, April 12-16, 2025, Thổ địa. Linh Valerie Pham: Co-creator, Puppet builder, Performer. Tran Kim Ngoc: Co-creator, Puppet builder, Performer. Nguyen Khanh Linh: Performer, Puppet builder. Nguyen Vu Hai: Co-creator, Performer. La Thanh Ha: Co-creator. Dao Tung Musician, Composer. Tran Thao Mien: Scenographer, Costume designer. Pham Minh Anh: Co-creator.

In BIPAM, ToLo Puppet Theatre’s inaugural production, Thổ địa (God of the Land), is a subtle and profound departure from the conventional presentation of a puppet show, a carefully choreographed, multi-prismatic experience that combines puppetry, lecture theatre, real-time sound and visual art. The show boldly dives into the deep fabric of the Vietnamese nation, skillfully weaving together the echoes of history and the ever-changing realities of the present, and immersing the audience in a journey of loss, search and re-anchoring of the self and the meaning of the city in the midst of change. It is a poem to the nation, the city and the memory.

This scroll begins with a confused child carrying a monster on his back, and a dying man searching for an old tree from his childhood. To be honest, I didn’t know what these puppets represented until I read the introduction to the show. All I could see was an actor dressed in dark robes, wearing a large, richly-textured red mask and holding an ordinary-looking broom, hunched over in an almost primitive stance, playing the role of the silent “land god” on one corner of the stage. This image immediately sets the tone for the entire performance, which is ancient and mysterious, but also carries a sense of alienation and heaviness, as if it were a forgotten or marginalized guardian of the changing city.

Old Man is seeking his childhood Wishing Tree in Thổ Địa. Photo: Thanit Vasu Yantrakovit

When the show officially started, I noticed that more than one time-space appeared on stage. We can clearly identify three main areas: a huge projection screen hangs at the back, which becomes the carrier of the video narrative; a slightly higher platform is set up on the left side of the stage, behind which the actors (or sound engineers) sit, facing the computers, generating and controlling the various sound effects needed in the play in real time, exposing the process of sound creation in front of the audience’s eyes. In the center area on the right side of the stage, where the main performance takes place, an exquisite hand puppet show becomes one of the highlights of the play: in front of a simple table, several puppet masters unashamedly show how they give life to the traditional hand puppets. Their own hands, body movements and facial expressions all became part of the performance and were visible to the audience. At the same time, the close-ups of the hand puppet performances were shown in real time on the projection screen at the back, allowing the audience to observe the details of the puppets’ expressions and movements; on the other side of the stage, the director synchronized the sound interpretation, sometimes simulating the sound of the wind and rain, at other times creating sudden noises.

A Boy with a Monster on his back wanders the Grey City, searching for something he has forgotten: *Thổ Địa*. Photo: Thanit Vasu Yantrakovit

This design creates at least three nested and inter-referenced theatrical spaces: a miniature story world enacted by the puppets themselves; and a physical space shared with the audience where the manipulators are located and where the audience clearly recognizes that the “heavenly obstacles” that keep interrupting the puppets originate from the manipulators’ intentional actions. It is clear that the puppeteers are not specific characters in the narrative. Thirdly, there is the video space, which amplifies the performance of the hand puppets, but also carries another independent story line—that of the little boy carrying the “monster”, wandering alone in the monochrome, industrial, gray urban background that seems to symbolize modern Hanoi. The superposition and interaction of these spaces form the unique, polyphonic spatial and temporal structure of Thổ địa, making a simple linear narrative impossible and forcing the viewer to constantly switch between different levels of “reality” and “fiction.”

ToLo Puppet Theatre’s debut *Thổ địa* blends puppetry, lecture and storytelling to explore Hanoi’s past and present. Photo: Thanit Vasu Yantrakovit

In one section, the director inserts a video of his own childhood neighborhood, where there are barely enough paths for two people to walk on, winding between old, one-storey houses. The visual texture is reminiscent of Beijing’s hutongs or the small town streets of northern China—not just in structure, but in the quality of slowness and intimacy. Hanoi, as depicted by Thổ địa, is not a city of tourist postcards or modern skyscrapers. It is a city remembered through narrow alleys and fading courtyards—those that once housed not only corpses, but also the emotions, quarrels, rituals and smells of generations.

It is worth mentioning that the deep involvement of Nguyen Vu Hai, a former Hanoi architect and now a cultural worker, has injected an indispensable soul into the production. His personal experience, his understanding of architectural space and his observations and reflections on the fate of his village in the midst of urbanization are skillfully integrated into the play, which probably constitutes a part of the “Lecture Theatre.” Although the specific presentation (whether it is a stand-alone passage, interspersed with narration, or combined with puppetry) needs to be further clarified, his perspective certainly provides a solid foundation of reality and an emotionally personal dimension for the play’s exploration of the evolution of Hanoi’s urban space, the conflict between the old and the new, and the identity of Hanoi.

Thổ địa’s attention to and use of “matter” is also thought-provoking. The puppet of a young boy, controlled by two puppeteers behind his back, is not a hideous “monster” in the traditional sense of the word, but rather presents an unexpected and colorful visual effect. It is like a strange collection of rich colors and irregular forms. However, a closer look reveals that the “monster” is made up of discarded waste materials from daily life, such as plastic fragments, discarded fabrics and broken parts. This setting is full of symbolic meaning: it may be a metaphor for the material and spiritual “garbage” produced in the modernized, consumerist city, which is forgotten and regarded as useless, but may be transformed into a different, broken and strange beauty; it may also symbolize the historical legacies, traumas and difficulties that individuals must carry as they grow up and move forward. These “burdens” are both burdensome and a part of the “self”, which are neither horrible nor easy to get rid of.

The production *Thổ địa* is a strong visual performance that demonstrates working with several types of masks Photo: Thanit Vasu Yantrakovit

The climax and conclusion of the show are full of poetry and symbolism. When the play reaches a certain point, the projection screen at the back suddenly falls, revealing a hidden scene—a piece of abstract “tree” skeleton carefully woven and constructed by countless white thick threads. This “tree” is ethereal and fragile, not only like the soul of the tree that the old man has been searching for his whole life, which carries the memories of his childhood, but also symbolizes the hope of life that grows tenaciously on top of the material ruins, or the only remaining vein of historical memory. This is followed by an even more impactful covering and wrapping: everything scattered on the stage—including people, puppets, props and scenes—is covered by a huge, roughly woven cloth. Even more movingly, one of the huge woven cloths was passed from the audience to the stage by the hands of those present, eventually gently enclosing and wrapping several of the core cast members. It may symbolize the effort and desire to “weave” together the broken individual experiences and scattered community memories or imply that history and reality will eventually be covered by a new narrative or oblivion. Perhaps it is expressing a vision of the future that requires collective participation, common commitment and protection. The audience’s participation breaks the boundaries of the stage and turns the theatre into a place where community behavior takes place, making the action of “weaving” itself have the meaning of connection, healing and co-construction.

The trio of disparate identities traveled together through the world that seemed to be changing before their eyes. Photo: Thanit Vasu Yantrakovit

All in all, Thổ địa not only demonstrates the puppetry skills of the troupe members, but also highlights their boldness in exploring and innovating the concept of theatre. It is not a light entertainment, but an in-depth experience that requires the audience to mobilize their senses and thoughts to actively participate and interpret. The show has successfully mobilized diversified theatrical elements such as live performance, hand puppets, large-scale puppets, videos, live sound design, lectures, etc., and organically fused them together to serve the deep depiction of the complex historical layers, changing social texture, and the emotional state of individuals in Hanoi city.

The work moves flexibly between the multiple tensions of “seeing” and “being seen,” “constructing” and “deconstructing”, “abandoning” and “rebuilding,” “individual” and “collective,” and ultimately leaves behind a complex mirror image that is both sad and full of power, light and heavy at the same time.