Lear

Pai Sam-Shik
National Changgeuk Company of Korea, part of the National Theatre of Korea
Barbican Theatre

Lear by NCCK at Barbican Credit: Tristram Kenton
Lear by NCCK at Barbican Credit: Tristram Kenton
Lear by NCCK at Barbican Credit: Tristram Kenton
Lear by NCCK at Barbican Credit: Tristram Kenton
Lear by NCCK at Barbican Credit: Tristram Kenton
Lear by NCCK at Barbican Credit: Tristram Kenton

Fans of one of Shakespeare’s most loved plays would do well to watch this innovative production by the National Changgeuk Company of Korea, part of the Korean music festival.

Jung Young-doo’s operatic production of the legendary work is a real visual treat. Dramatic staging interweaves a very slick and watchable performance, and the sheer labour and consideration behind this complex physical endeavour is impressive.

The words are sung in an operatic form and with highly musical performances that deliver charged emotions. For many in the audience, the Changgeuk art form presents a novelty: a fusion of high and low cultures combining elements of Western narrative theatre, traditional Korean opera and “pansori”, an ancient Korean form of musical storytelling that dates back to the 17th century (with the production's Pansori scores composed by Han Seung-seok and music written by Jung Jae-il).

In this, a single vocalist interweaves song (chang) and descriptive speech (aniri) and nuramase (gestures) and single drumming (gosu), combining them in stylised and naturalistic forms. The vocals give way to melancholic and ornate sounds through ornamentation that conveys an intense passion delivered through what sounds like exaggerated rubato with undertones of yodelling. If these weren’t arresting enough, the accompaniment of traditional and modern instruments—a bamboo oboe, flute and synthesiser—provides uniquely evocative music that seeps into your subconscious by sheer force of its simplicity.

And this force of sound plays alongside the production with its scenes of calm—such as when Cordelia laments her father’s madness—and others of intensity during the fight and capture scenes. But throughout, a strong sense of ritual and mythology punctures the production of this spellbinding experience. The stage is bare and blank with the ground drenched in water. The characters appear behind and through a mesh curtain illuminated by sombre lighting depicting a sense of an eternal winter. The characters are all dressed in dark blue and grey, and all their movements involve wading through the water on stage, perhaps pointing to the solemnity and inescapability of their fates.

A chorus enhances the sense of ritual as the often silhouetted characters appear against the gloomy sky. King Lear, played by Kim Jun-Su, conveys rage, ego and despair and the scenes where his conniving daughters are on trial in a bleak landscape and the battle scenes where they are finally vanquished are magnificently executed. As in the Shakespeare play, Lear finally discovers his humanity and recognises his foolishness as he laments over his wise and faithful daughter Cordelia as she lies dead.

The declamatory style of the performance doesn’t give much room for subtlety or textured performances as expected by a traditional piece of theatre, but it’s altogether a very different experience. Pai Sam-shik’s text, delivered by surtitles, is not Shakespearean in meter or content but a modern poetical interpretation that makes constant references to the way that water returns to its source against the backdrop of a production that’s literally steeped in water, thanks to Lee Tae-sup’s set design.

In all, it is both a pleasing and curious experience that works as a piece of stagecraft of impressive performance skills and stunning staging rather than one that plays with the intricacies of the text. But it feels like an epic, with forceful songs and actions that are part of a greater narrative arc rather than part of a nuanced drama.

Perhaps most impressive of all is that it doesn’t seek to marry a very different theatrical tradition with the western genre, but instead reworks Shakespeare’s masterpiece on its own terms.

Reviewer: Shiroma Silva

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