Plays + Coffee = Dream Come True

What’s one thing that HCMC has that SF doesn’t? Drama Cafes.

Cafes are no longer just study spots with caffeine and soothing music. In Vietnam, they are transforming into destinations for the purpose of bringing art and theater to everyday people. Painting exhibitions, live music, films, and lectures have been popular in the past, but now, skits and plays are being introduced to the coffee scene. (1)

Specifically, Bet Cafe is popular for slipping theater into customers’ coffee cups. Owner Lam Do Thanh is a patron of the arts, being a musician himself, and has contributed to the growing popularity of drama cafes. Plays are performed three evenings a week by professional actors, and more and more a cult is following the entertainment.

The thrust stage allows audience members to be up close and personal to the actors and the performance. Play topics are chosen based on what seems popular by viewers that come from week to week.

Other cafes have followed suit, but instead with its own twist of themes. Nhen offers thrillers while Q2 offers a combination of comedies and horrors.

However, some say this type of theater is for the youth and does not compare to professional theaters with its professional stages. The scenery, lighting, sound, and the world created within a theater is compromised in the coffee shop background, making its longevity and implacability of theaters indeterminate.

I earnestly hope that drama cafes spread to California. Ontario’s Shadow Path Theatre Productions has already produced a series of “Plays in Cafes.” Fingers cross that this spreads south!