KOREA FOUNDATION

1. Please briefly introduce yourself.

I am a director of performing arts. If you were to ask me what kind of performances I present on stage, I would hardly be able to answer because I direct works of diverse and indefinable genres. Mostly, my efforts are focused on combining music and images, and by so doing, amplifying the significance of each stage element.

2. You directed the musical drama King Jeongjo and Hamlet, which was invited to the 2021 Seoul International Performing Arts Festival. Please tell us about the drama and how you came to direct it.

King Jeongjo and Hamlet is a serialized musical drama project by the Korean Traditional Performing Arts Foundation. It has been staged since 2016, and I joined in 2020. The foundation’s planning team contacted me to take over the project’s directorship after watching Night of Bluebeard, which I directed and staged at the Asia Culture Center. At first, I was afraid to take the position because I wondered what I could do for King Jeongjo and Hamlet, as it had already solidly established itself. I was only able to courageously accept the offer after I was told that I could freely reinterpret the work based on its source material.

3. Though it occurs only on stage, people must have paid keen attention to the space- and time-bending encounter of King Jeongjo and Hamlet.

As I was about to begin the project, I faced the grave question of how I would have King Jeongjo and Hamlet meet. Wherever I went, I was constantly murmuring the words “fiction” and “history.” The two lived in different places and times, but come to meet in the world of “eternity” where time does not exist. Such a notion is weaved into images that arouse indescribable emotions that may be called sympathy. If you have seen the performance, it might be easy to think of a certain scene from it as I say this.

A scene from King Jeongjo and Hamlet / Photo courtesy of Korean Traditional Performing Arts Foundation

4. King Jeongjo and Hamlet have many things in common: their fathers were killed for the throne; their mothers almost gave up on them to mind the incumbent kings; and they had to endure staying close to their fathers’ killers, unable to reveal their anger. What else do you think draws King Jeongjo and Hamlet to each other?

I would say that it is the same anguish and agony that leads them to each other. King Jeongjo would not take off his royal robe even when he went to bed; Hamlet wore his mourning clothes even at his mother’s wedding. The two must have felt that they would cease to exist if they took the garments off, wearing them in critical situations in which they felt that their existence had been denied and their lives put on the line. Their attire could have betrayed their anxiety, stubbornness, or attachment to their fathers. No one asked if the clothes they involuntarily wore belonged to them or if they had chosen the garments on their own; they themselves did not even question what they were wearing. I wished to ask King Jeongjo, Hamlet, and the audience if what they consider to be their own beliefs, justice, and truth are truly their own, and if they would have the courage to break away from these notions were they to discover them to be implanted by something else.

5. In directing the musical drama, what did you focus on the most?

The performance does not narrate a logical story, but presents fragments of images and clues floating in the air. It is designed to help each and every member of the audience collect these fragments and weave stories with them in their minds.

Up until the last moment before the curtain rose, I heard lots of worrisome comments about how the show employed sensory and variable means of instead of text-oriented information. Even the participating artists and workers told me that they had only solved the puzzle after they saw the completed performance and experienced the moments in which these images narrate the play.
Many of those who are familiar with established theatrical grammar said that it was difficult, whereas the audience seemed to understand the theme and embrace the characters rather intuitively and directly.

6. Could you tell us some more about how audiences responded?

An elementary school student accurately figured out the codes in King Jeongjo’s robe and Hamlet’s mourning clothes. I won’t say more because I may spoil it. An audience member in their 80s who had learned that I directed the show approached me in the lobby of Arko Arts Theater. They told me that the performance was like one of Picasso’s paintings and that the hours of watching it had passed quickly while they busily put the clues together. We didn’t present a perfectly-woven foundation, only marking a few dots on the stage. Still, the audience drew the lines and weaved their own stories, and my colleagues and I were happy and grateful for this.

7. The performing arts community has been hit hard in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, and arts facilities were among the first to shut down. As a member of the community, do you have any comment or particular feelings about the situation?

In 2020, when I was preparing King Jeongjo and Hamlet, our society was not yet ready to cope with the pandemic. Many performances were abruptly canceled. Hearing that some performing groups had been ousted from the theater only a few hours before their performances, along with many other instances of bad news, I realized keenly how a secure system contributes to project participants’ rapport and their concentration on the work.

Amid fears that the performance of King Jeongjo and Hamlet could be canceled at any time, our planning team decided to change the stage performance that was scheduled for late October to a video performance. Early in that year, the team had also decided to pay the participants in advance, though partially, and proceed with the production. Thanks to the planning team’s quick judgment and decision-making, King Jeongjo and Hamlet turned out to be a robust and lucky survivor. The video performance in 2020 was followed by live theater performances in 2021, and we are seeking ways to stage the work for direct interaction with audiences again this year. Despite the difficulties of the pandemic, people concerned about performing arts are making their best efforts in their respective fields to reach out to a wider audience