Theatre internationalisation: a Vietnamese perspective

During the last century, there have been many international theatrical exchanges which provided theatre practitioners with a wide range of opportunities to adapt and borrow elements or techniques from one theatre culture to apply to another. However, the question remains, whether this process is a collaboration in which 'foreign' elements equally exist with the original tradition, creating a new form or are they assimilated into the tradition and absorbed by it? Do 'foreign' elements remain foreign, used within familiar structures? In this thesis I map out a conceptual framework for analysing a number of related practices in adapting and borrowing techniques from various theatre forms to integrate into one's own form. I define this process as a concept of theatre internationalisation. This study of theatre internationalisation explores the experiences and practices of theatricals from Vietnam, together with a wide variety of other theatre cultures, in order to develop my own approach to practising the concept of internationalisation in theatre. Through analysing theatre works of international and Vietnamese directors and theoreticians I search for my own creative practice as a Vietnamese theatre director. It is hoped that this study will not only provide Vietnamese theatre practitioners, particularly the younger generation, with a key to finding the potential to strengthen their own theatre culture, but will also serve to foreground the diversity of theatrical practice in contemporary cultures.