Play «Tiếng hát nửa đêm» («The Midnight Song»)

   A young stage performer vanishes, rumours race across the southern provinces, and the investigation that follows swings between real dread and outright farce every few minutes. That is the shape of the detective comedy running on the best-known small stage in Ho Chi Minh City, where you sit close enough to catch every raised eyebrow.

   The play was written by Huynh Ngan (Huỳnh Ngân) and staged by Hoang Phuc (Hoàng Phúc), with the stage edit done by the director together with People's Artist My Uyen (Mỹ Uyên), who also appears in the cast. The story is set in the 1960s, when the disappearance of a young singer shook what people still called «lục tỉnh Nam Kỳ», the six southern provinces of the old south. What follows is a trail of clues that is tense, faintly eerie and repeatedly interrupted by comic scenes. A large ensemble is billed, among them Phuong Binh (Phương Bình), Trong Hieu (Trọng Hiếu), Vu Tran (Vũ Trần) and Ta Lam (Tạ Lâm).

   The venue is a story in itself. The experimental theatre club on Võ Văn Tần street started back in 1984, and Nhà hát Kịch Sân khấu Nhỏ was founded on 7 July 1997. Its format is «sân khấu thể nghiệm», experimental theatre in a small hall: the acting area can sit in the middle with the audience around it. Thanh Loc (Thành Lộc), Huu Chau (Hữu Châu), Hong Van (Hồng Vân), Viet Anh (Việt Anh) and Minh Nhi (Minh Nhí) all came through this stage, and «Dạ cổ hoài lang», one of the most famous Vietnamese plays, premiered here in 1994. The theatre describes itself as a model case of «xã hội hóa» for the city — a stage that lives on its own box office rather than on the state budget.

   The evening suits anyone who enjoys a whodunnit and the retro look of the Vietnamese south, and anyone curious about working drama theatre away from the polish of the big halls. If you want to see what a genuine repertory stage in Ho Chi Minh City looks like, rather than a show assembled for visitors, this is the address.

   The production runs in blocks rather than nightly: the next performance is on 24 October 2026 at 19:00. No further dates have been announced by the ticket seller so far.

   The performance is in Vietnamese, and the organiser gives no information about subtitles or translation.

   The small hall on Võ Văn Tần is a rare chance to watch Vietnamese theatre from an arm's length, and October still holds one more occasion to do it.