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Kim Hoon’s novel transforms into a Korean traditional play

Kim Hoon’s novel transforms into a Korean traditional play

Posted October. 19, 2016 07:36,   

Updated October. 19, 2016 07:45

한국어
“The Song of Strings,” a musical drama based on the namesake novel, will be debuted at the National Gukak Center in Seoul from Nov. 10 through Nov. 20.

“It’s crazy to make it into a play,” Director Lee Byung-hoon said at the center on Tuesday morning. He is an experienced director who received the Dong-A Play Award in 1989 and the Korean Grand Prize for Play in 2008.

“The language in the novel is eloquent and has something special that can be materialized in imagination," Lee said. "I thought it is impossible to render it into a western musical. I decided to test a new format focused on music like an oratorio.”

“We prepared for the piece exchanging views with Kim Hoon, the author, for about a year," said Kim Hae-sook, the head of the National Gukak Museum. "I hope our center can deal with the music that was not addressed in the novel in detail.”

However, music director Ryu Hyeong-sun had challenges due to the strong language of the original novel. “I wrote the lyric again based on my own interpretation, and formed an orchestra focused on Gayageum as the title is the Song of Strings," he said. He designated six Korean traditional singers who majored in singing with the traditional Korean musical instrument as the “Women of Strings,” playing music with Ureuk or alleviate his anguish. He used them as a chorus in an ancient Greek theater.

Ureuk, the leading role in the play, will be played by Gayageum player Kim Hyeong-seop (an orchestra member of the National Gukak Center) and Ara is played by Lee Ha-gyeong (a dancer of the center). Kim Tae-moon, a musical actor who appeared in "Mozart" and "Jekyll and Hyde," took the role of Nimoon, Ureuk’s student

The actors and actresses showcased part of the musical for around six minutes. Though there were narration, singing along the Gayageum, the solo play of the Gayageum, and solo dance, it was too short to watch the completeness of the play or the atmosphere. If Ureuk’s Gayageum performance captured audiences, the singing of two actors who did not major in singing was quite monotonous.

“I was encouraged to hear from the production team’s story that the blend singing could be more efficient in delivering the cold heart and the text of the original novel, rather than great singing,” Kim Hyeong-seop said.



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