Elsewhere
Elsewhere
✭✭✭✭✩
directed and choreographed by Kim Chunghan
Jeongdong Theatre, Seoul, KOR
April 6-October 29, 2017
“The sap rises in a dead branch
And it has started to sprout”
(from the “The Song of Floral Tribute”, a traditional Korean song)
In Korea only two ancient performance traditions have survived into the present. One is talchum (탈춤), the other is pansori (판소리). Talchum is a dance deriving from shamanistic ritual where the dancers wear masks and enact a narrative through dance, dialogue and song. Pansori involves one narrator who tells a story through dialogue and song accompanied by a musician who also adds sound effects.
Visitors to South Korea looking for performances of classical theatre will discover that performances of talchum and pansori are hard to find. Political and religious stability are necessary for the development of drama and such stability is exactly what was lacking in Korea with its history of constant invasions. Thus, while Japan in its centuries of isolation from the outside world developed theatre types such as noh, bunraku and kabuki that are still played in theatres today, continual struggles in Korea made such a development impossible. As one example, two results of the Japanese invasions of Korea in 1592-98 were that all places of Korean cultural heritage were destroyed and that all of the the prominent Korean scholars, scientists and craftsmen were sent to Japan.
Given this background the Jeongdong (정동) Theatre in Seoul has made it its mission since its founding in 1995 to tell Korean stories by means of the traditional Korean performing arts that have survived. During my visit in June 2017, the Jeongdong Theatre was staging its most recent creation, Lotus, A Flower Comes Out Once More, choreographed by Kim Chunghan to a scenario by Park Choonkeun and music by Kim Tekn and directed by Kim Chunghan. Unlike the three traditional Japanese genres of theatre, the Jeongdong Theatre creates dance dramas without dialogue so that the characters’ emotions must be communicated entirely through dance, gesture and mime.
Park Choonkeun seamlessly combines two Korean folktales. The first is “The Wife of Domi” from Samguk Sagi, a chronicle of the Three Kingdoms period (57 bc-668 ad) compiled by Kim Busik in 1145. The second is “Igong Bonpuri”, a shamanistic tale from Jeju Island. In the first, the King of Baekje (one of the Three Kingdoms) lusts after the wife of Domi, one of his servants. Her own cleverness helps her to evade the King and confirm her love for her husband. In the second, a woman called Wongang Ami dies after a life of slavery all the time refusing intercourse with her owner. Eventually, the owner becomes so enraged at her refusals he kills and dismembers her. Through the help of a shaman Hallakgungi, her son and husband bury her remains in a flower garden. From her head a rose of winter tree grows and from her chest an empress tree. Hallakgungi mingles the leaves, recreates her body and returns her back to life.
Park Choonkeun has set Lotus, A Flower Comes Out Once More in the period of the early Joseon dynasty (1392-1897). The drama begins with Mo-Hwa, the court shaman, slowly carrying a pot of incense across the stage. In many ways the character is both purifying the air of the court and initiating a transition from our world to the world of the past.
The female dancers perform the “Taepyeongmu”, a dance praying for the peaceful reign and prosperity of the royal house. During the performance, the dancer Seo-ryeon (Jo Haneul), the second half of whose name is the word “lotus” (蓮), drops her flowered wand. The general Do-dam (Jeon Jin Hong) picks it up for her and the two immediately fall in love. Following this the director Kim has the court make an impressive entrance by processing down the two aisles of the auditorium to the stage. The King (Jo Eui Yeon) and Queen (Kim Soo Min) take their places on the traditional double throne and the ceremonies resume once more.
Now is the men’s turn to dance and they perform the “Geommu”, a traditional sword dance with Do-dam as the central dancer. Jeon impresses with his twirling while thrusting the sword and his sudden poses in various sword-fighting positions.
When the women dance again Seo-ryeon is the only one who accompanies herself on the haegeum, a traditional Korean string instrument with a long neck, small wooden soundbox and two silken strings played with a bow. While the dancer is only “play-synching” to the prerecorded soundtrack, she has the difficult task of integrating the believable playing movements with the requirements of the traditional dance she performs. Jo Haneul is outstanding in this respect.
Unfortunately, Seo-ryeon’s ability first attracts the King’s attention and then his desire. During this scene director Kim masterfully has Do-dam, the Queen and Seo-ryeon all react with increasing alarm to the King’s attention. Finally, the King demands that Seo-ryeon play for him alone as a dancer. As choreographer Kim gives the King a dance that is both difficult and deliberately awkward, expertly danced byJo Eui Yeon, to highlight the grotesqueness of the King’s desire. The King’s behaviour so outrages the Queen that she and her women depart in disgust.
When Seo-ryeon and Do-dam finally find themselves alone, they declare their mutual love in a beautifully directed scene. Kim shows that neither wishes to speak first for fear of being rejected. Unlike western ballet which would have employed numerous leaps, lifts, throws and catches to depict the couple’s exultant love, Kim draws on traditional earthbound Korean dance. The two illustrate their mutual affection by each dancing alone but mirroring the moves of the other. Just as Seo-ryeon’s signature instrument is the haegeum, Do-dam’s signature instrument is the daegeum or large transverse flute. At first their music echoes each other. Finally they play in unison. Kim has their dance climax in a lift but it is only one of three in the entire show.
This tender scene is interrupted by the arrival of the King and huntsmen who kidnap Seo-ryeon and fight Do-dam, leaving him for dead. In a scene, surprising to western dance, we find the King consoling himself among a group of concubines who perform a lascivious dance. Seo-ryeon is brought in and mocked by the concubines for her prudery. They even hold her down so that the King can have his way with her. But when Seo-ryeon slaps him to get him to stop, he is so enraged he sends her to prison.
Meanwhile, Do-dam has organized a group of sulsa warriors (predecessors of the Japanese ninjas) which gives Kim a chance to include a demonstration of traditional Korean martial arts that derive from the Hwarang, an elite group formed in Silla, another of the Three Kingdoms. With this group, Do-dam storms the prison and rescues Seo-ryeon while the King’s female archers rain arrows down on them. The King pursues them and the battle becomes a duel between Do-dam and the King. Seeking to protect Do-dam, Seo-ryeon interposes herself and is killed by the King, who flees in shame and is never seen again.
This would normally be the end of the story, but those who remember the subtitle of the show and its reference to the second tale that makes up the plot, will know there is more to come. Do-dam brings the lifeless Seo-ryeon to the female shaman Mo-Hwa to be brought back to life. In a show that has already had one visually vivid scene after the next, the final shamanistic ritual outdoes them all.
Mo-Hwa dances in the sinuous manner of a snake and and at one point places her rattle on its long red silk ribbon in her mouth making it appear like a tongue. Her altar is the head of a huge drum which she plays by pounding her feet. This occasions the entire stage to be filled with drums and for Kim to integrate into the story a demonstration of the art of Korean drumming. Two men beat away at a huge barrel drum at the back flanked by two others beating smaller barrels while nine sets of double shallow drums suspended in rolling frames are moved about played in various configurations by the women. Except for a few ominous crashes, the soundtrack quietens to allow us to hear the full immense impact of the live drumming on stage.
Lotus, A Flower Comes Out Once More is a spectacular show that skillfully integrates a wide number of traditional Korean performing arts with the goal of telling two well-blended Korean tales. Although there is a detailed synopsis of the action in the programme in four languages, the acting of the dancers is so detailed and the direction of Kim Chunghan so clear that there is no need to read it beforehand. In fact, I would advise not reading it before the show just to be surprised at the many unusual twists the story takes.
While the show does employ traditional Korean arts – the costumes, particularly the many sets of hanbok costumes for the women are gorgeous – Kim Chunghan does not eschew modern technology. Throughout the show the lighting is especially effective in shifting scenes and in creating special effects. In one the Queen is placed downstage on one side of a long screen while on the other we see in silhouette the attempts of the King to seduce Seo-ryeon. In an amazing sequence unlike any I’ve seen on the western stage, Kim has the lighting designer depict the rain of arrows through which Do-dam struggles by means of dozens of ceiling pinspots flicked on and off in rapid, seemingly random succession, each beam imitating the course of an arrow.
Seoul is filled with theatrical activity. It is particularly enamoured of British and American musicals. But if, as a foreigner, you want a theatrical experience that immerses you into the world of traditional Korean stories and performing arts, the Jeongdong Theatre is the place to go. The Jeongdong so impressed me that I will make a visit there part of any future visit to Seoul.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photos: (from top) Seo-ryeon and Do-dam; the Queen (foreground) with Seo-ryeon and the King in silhouette; Mo-hwa standing with Seo-ryeon. ©2017 Jeongdong Theatre.
For tickets, visit jeongdongtheater.com.
2017-06-19
Seoul, KOR: Lotus, A Flower Comes Out Once More