Devised by: Bachelor of Performance and Theatre 2nd Year Students, Director: Linda Luke. This project was created with the support of a New Colombo Plan grant provided by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT).
Vietnam/ Australia: Stories We Tell. Rùa Vàng (The Golden Turtle) is a re-telling of an adventure: where truths are a little smeared and mythologies wend their way in.
Xin chao! Welcome to Hanoi, Vietnam. What happens when a bunch of UOW theatre students meet a bunch of Vietnamese theatre students for two weeks? Obviously, they drink together, share stories, exchange Google translation notes, smile, laugh, bond, hug a lot, and of course, make theatre together.
Rùa Vàng (The Golden Turtle) is a ‘performance diary’, in response to the two exhilarating weeks the cast experienced in Hanoi. It is part documentary and partly a poetic impressionistic rendering of what happened. How do we tell a story? Do we tell the truth or do we creatively embellish to help express the ‘truthful’ inner experience of what happened? Rùa Vàng (The Golden Turtle) aims to capture the energetic inner life of the experiences of our ten performers. Underpinning the antics, challenges and absurdities of the everyday interactions between people of two cultures who don’t share the same language, Rùa Vàng (The Golden Turtle) also questions what is not said, what is not consciously thought about, what is not addressed but is hiding in plain sight. Instead of an elephant in the room, we have a golden turtle.
Cast: Luke Denvir, Charlotte Dickinson, Chelsea George, Jennifer Gray, Amelia Harding, Charlotte Lee, Mitchell Lee, Samuel Noll, Cooper Savides, and Elyse Zouroudis
Remote Cast from Hanoi Academy of Theatre and Cinema: (via video): Ta Duc Kien, Ha Ha Thanh, Le Ha Anh, Lo Xuan quynh, Tran Tuan Anh, Nguyen Thi Minh Tra, Tran Van Phan, Tran Quoc Viet, Nguyen Thi Hue, Nguyen Quynh Ann, Ngo Duong Khanh Linh, Dong Tay Dang Quang and To Duc Thang.
Stage Manager: Briana Chapman
Assistant Stage Manager: Jarrah Carlile
Sound Design: Linda Luke
Lighting Design team: Ellie Wedgwood, Karen Norris
Video Cinematographer: Công Thành with team: Nguyễn Dũng, Anh Quân, Ellie Wedgwood and Kiara Smith