A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. To 1 July.
London
A MIDSUMMER NIGHTS DREAM
by Jung-Ung Yang translated by Winny Yoon from a story by William Shakespeare
Barbican Theatre To 1 July 2006
Tue-Sat 7.45pm Mat Sat 2pm
Runs 1hr 40min No interval
TICKETS: 0845 120 755
www.barbican.org.uk (reduced booking fee online)
Review: Timothy Ramsden 28 June
Korean Shakespeare spin-off with tremendous physicality.
Yohangza Theatre Company’s production of director Jung-Ung Yang’s play is a splendidly choreographed, high-energy affair incorporating elements from their native Korea. The story involves 2 pairs of lovers escaping into a forest and a magic juice that alters affections, applied by fairy forest folk. But here it’s applied by the wife to her womanising husband, whose affection thereby lights on a passing, pissing old herb-collector, subsequently given a pig’s head.
The magic forest’s filled with Dokkebi, nocturnal, human-like Korean spirits. A couple of them cheekily cavort round the stage (and occasionally, less successfully into the audience – watch out on Row E) with the skills of acrobats and mimes.
What’s missing from Shakespeare is the sense of community and individuals’ struggles for satisfaction within them: Bottom battling Peter Quince in search of (however crude) artistic expression, Oberon and Titania’s affection and loyalty around the changeling boy, Theseus and Hippolyta making love not war, the lovers coming to terms with each other.
But the personal, from the Dokkebis’ irresponsible puckish delight to marital jealousy and old Ajumi’s search for the herb-gatherer’s trophy, a millennium-old ginseng plant, is played out with exhilarating physicality and vocal colour.
It’s fascinating to see this cultural appropriation (giving him such local habitations is one point of Shakespeare). And the simple setting provides a flexible platform for this company’s choreography. Though this isn‘t dance-Shakespeare; the movement is dramatic, capturing moments and moods precisely.
There’s the wonderful heel-toe shuffle by which characters seem to glide over the stage, as the lovers seem to claw-back or escape each other. There are superb frozen moments, catching characters mid-move, holding the energy of a leap or a fall.
In one scene this all works supremely. In the 4 lovers’ quarrel (always difficult to bring off) the mix of stylisation and realism moves through the men keeping the women apart, the women trying to prize the men from each other into ultimate confusion where the quartet of bodies gyrate in perplexity as lights fade-out. Heresy, I know, but it seems even the words couldn’t say what’s going on here with more vivid clarity.
Duduri: Hyun-Seok Chang/Jung-Young Jeon/Young-Ho Kwon/Jin-Gon Kim/Cheong-Im Kang/Ji-Yeon Kim
Hang: Seong-Hwan Lee
Byeok: Ji-Young Kim
Roo: Jun-Wan Kim
Ick: Hyun-Sook Ahn
Gabi: Hae-Kyun Cheong
Dot: Sun-Hee Park
Ajumi: So-Young Park
Director: Jung-Ung Yang
Designer: Yun-Soo Lee
Lighting: Kook-Koon Yeo
Sound: Chan-Gyu Choi
Music Director: Eun-Jung Kim
Choreographer: Jung-Sun Kim
Costume: Myoung-Ah Lee
2006-06-29 11:05:25