Forgiving Thị Mầu, a Girl Who Dared to Defy: Performance Change and Chèo Theatre in Northern Vietnam

This article discusses differences between professionally staged chèo and village chèo. When chèo moved out of the village communal yards and onto professional stages, dramatic changes were made to performance style and to the audience-performer relationship. This article demonstrates how differences between embodied practices of performance in village chèo and in modern staged chèo reflect broader changes to social values, particularly new ideas about female morality, in contemporary northern Vietnam. The article focuses on the example of shifting attitudes toward and stylistic interpretations of the flirtatious character of Thị Mầu in the classical chèo play Quan Âm—Thị Kính (Goddess of Mercy—Thị Kính).