Nguyen Dinh Nghi (1883-1954)

Nguyen Dinh Nghi, a native of Thuy Loi village, Tien Lu district, was born in 1883. His home village has a long tradition of folk rituals, festivals and performance. This is one of the areas with many performers of the Dong Cheo group (Cheo is a form of popular theatre in Vietnam). When he grew up, he was interested in cheo and decided to choose this form of theatre as his career and was willing to devote his whole life to it.

Not only performing ancient cheo stories, he also wrote a lot of new plays and held them in theatres in Hanoi and Hai Phong. He initiated and performed the idea of “Cheo cai luong” (Or renovated cheo) as well as wrote or modified over 60 cheo stories in that way. It can be said that he was the one who vitalized cheo and made it suitable for the arts conditions of the modern time (in the 1920's and 1930's).

When the anti-French resistance war started, he returned to his native village. In 1948, Major-General Nguyen Son invited him to Thanh Hoa to write dramatics to serve the army. After that, he went to Yen Bai to teach dramatics to members of the ensemble and then returned to Thanh Hoa to lead Ensemble No. 4 with his son, Nguyen Dinh Thiet.

He had 10 children but none of them caught up with him in terms of arts talent. Only his oldest daughter, Nguyen Thi Dinh, devoted all her life to cheo. During the anti-French resistance war, she worked in ensembles until 1958 - when she shifted to a teaching job in Vietnam Music School.

Main works of Nguyen Dinh Nghi include:

• A session of Laughter (cheo), 1924
• The second session of laughter (cheo), 1924
• The third session of laughter (cheo), 1925
• The fourth session of laughter (cheo), 1925
• The birth of the Christ (cheo), 1926

All his works expressed his love for the country and highlighted the national pride of people. In 1931, he held a cheo performance titled "Keu rang minh oan" (I am unjustly punished), which included the sentence: “All people who are descendents of Lac Long Quan and Au Co should stand up to take back their country.” Due to this, he was jailed for nearly two months.

Nguyen Dinh Nghi had a voluminous career in literature and cheo theatre. As a cheo writer, he made many significant contributions with various realistic and humane works. As a cheo renovator, his contributions were also considerable. He deserved being the leading person with the most contribution in the cheo theatre as he took it out of the most difficult time with the successful renovation of cheo as “Cheo cai luong”.