That's me dressed up as God for the opening (and closing) night of the ESS annual musical: The Story of Creation.
When the senior Kim Dae Min started it in the 1960s, the English Speaking Society taught the language purely by way of the script and the stage. Through acting, students developed an intimacy with the expression and intonation of the language in addition to the vocabulary and grammar. So much meaning is tied into the expression of the words. Acting, versus simple recitation, requires the speaker to communicate from these deeper levels.
According to the plexiglas sign on the third-floor hallway, ESS has put on more than thirty plays, one per year. There was a ten-year-long dry spell in the eighties when the government shut down all private English academies. I have no idea why, and google is little help. That's not the point, anyway. Quit getting me off topic! What were we talking about?
Oh yes, the play.
We began rehearsals back in February. The part of God was split between Gavin and I. The first four scenes of the eight-scene play went to me, and Gavin took up the slack. I'm not sure why Mr. Kim choose us to play the leading role, as this was an opportunity for the brightest stars in the school to shine. Perhaps Mr. Kim thought the role too heavy a burden for any of the children to bear. 'God' had lines from the first scene to the last, afterall. However, these were fourteen and fifteen-year-old students producing a play written for American third-graders. The longest stretch of dialogue was barely two sentences.
It was clear from nearly the beginning of the project that this play was to be a major production. There was more at stake than I first realized. A few weeks into rehearsals, Mr. Kim had all the teachers involved in the play watch a video of the play being performed by a rival hagwon in Seoul. From the outset, it was clear that the video was not a guide, but a benchmark to surpass. "We can do so much better than them," boasted Mrs. Nam following the video.
"We have to be better than them," added Soo-hyun later on. "They will be here to see it when we put it on."
Mr. Kim's ego was at stake. Failure would not be tolerated!
A few things struck me about the video. First of all, the children performing the play were much younger than the children performing it at ESS, closer to the script's target age. They also lip-synched the songs and they cast a student in the role of God. Of course we'd do better. Our kids are older, better trained, and 'God' would be played by two young, white American native English speakers. Who did Mr. Kim think he was fooling?
Mr. Kim brought in his daughter, Gyeong-min, to score the music. He hired a dance instructor to choreograph the songs and a director from Kyeongsung University took the reins...Well, half the reins. Mr. Kim micromanaged the play down to the smallest details. A rehearsal totaling four scenes could last three hours while Mr. Kim and the director argued and fussed over blocking, pronunciation and acting.
Gavin, the students and I did our best to stay engaged, but it was like riding a roller-coaster. A scene would get moving, everything coming together, and then Mr. Kim would throw up his hands and yell or walk up to a student and grab him or her mid-line. The play would stop, a ten minutes would go by as Mr. Kim obsessed about something, and then we'd start the scene over. Once during one of these tirades, Min-geun, a bright young woman from my 1S class playing the role of 'Star,' leaned over and confided, "Mr. Kim very scary."
Sun-jeong, the official director, was a bright, confidant, charismatic young woman; and she handled Mr. Kim with grace and patience. Whenever he didn't make it to rehearsal, the atmosphere was much more relaxed. Sun-jeong usually saved her most critical changes for after a scene was over, and was mindful of mine and Gavin's limitations. I enjoyed watching her work with the children. She was unflinching as she demonstrated how 'Moon' should walk or how 'Water' should twirl or how I would gesture with my hands as I filled the void with light in my booming, perfectly-pronounced inflection.
That's me sitting upon my heavenly throne as 'Day' sings her opening song. Kudos to Sang-min (Night) for the photo.
Poor 'Day' badly twisted her ankle while rehearsing her solo the day before opening night. The choreographer had her spinning in the air while singing "Let there beeeeee darknesssssss!!!" and she botched the landing. 'Day' endured both performances on Sunday, totaling sixteen acts, with her ankle tightly wrapped in gauze. This is a tight portrait of her I took during a dress rehearsal last week.
Working with the students made for joyful work. Both Gavin and I got a kick out of watching the kids laugh and enjoy themselves as they learned their lines, blocking and cues. Both of us were called on to help students with their pronunciation and expression, and this afforded us the opportunity to build a bond with many of the stuedents. Some of the students had never bothered or had never been taught how to express the meaning behind the words they were reading. Up until being handed that simple script, it just wasn't a part of their education.
The students couldn't read their line in front of an audience with a flat intonation and no regard for punctuation. Their role as actors forced them to think about where they stress words, pause, and raise the volumn of their voice. Those little dots, slashes and curvy lines nestled within the sentences suddenly took on a lot more meaning. Whenever they could, students pulled Gavin and I aside so they could practice.
"Teacher, help me," they would say and point to a highlighted line of script. "Teacher, read please." And Gavin and I would dutifully obey, demonstrating, listening and correcting them as they followed our lead. Some of them got it, and it brought a smile to my face to watch them apply what they'd learned. No one was better at this than 'Night,' Sang-min.
'Night' and 'God' share a long exchange in the third scene when 'Night' expresses dismay at having no friends with whom to share the darkness. Night is required to express complex emotions such as sadness and renewed hope. There were many dramatic pauses, slowing of delivery and body language changes that Sang-min had to learn. Some of these skills were instinctual, and the natural energy of the exchange contributed greatly to her success. Still, I was impressed by how quickly she mastered the subtlties of the duet.
There were more than a few natural-born actors in the play. Some of the students played their parts so well it seemed to me as if they were born into that role. The girl who played 'Mouse' scampered about and delivered her lines in a humble, quick-witted style.
The two social pariahs in the group were cast as 'Man' and 'Woman,' which in my opinion, is quite fitting. 'Woman' was played by a short, shy girl who always appeared to be trying to disappear into her over-sized down parka. 'Man' was a lanky, disquieting boy named Jeong-won with a penchant for invading people's personal space. He spoke the line, "We are alive" in such a robotic, flat tone that it sounded like the punchline to a bad joke. I got a good shot of him adjacent 'Sunflower.'
'Sunflower' was a beanpole of a girl with the biggest, warmest smile I've ever seen radiating out from her face like the yellow petals glued to her green hat. Water was lithe and joyful, leaping and dancing across the stage trailing a fluttering, snappng blue ribbon behind her. She and Land flirt a little in the second scene. First, the waters are seperated from the heavens, and 'Water' flutters around the stage for her song. Then 'Dry Land' appears.
'Dry Land' was played by Hong-gi, who I mentioned in the last update. Having only recently been introduced to English, Hong-gi was learning the way the first students at ESS learned: Through the theater. Soo-hee, Gavin, Mr. Kim and I all worked tirelessly to help Hong-gi deliver his lines with anything approaching articulation, and we met with some success. After he is created, 'Dry Land' stomps up to 'Water' and compliments her.
"You are so...Soooo blue!!!" He exclaims, and then 'Water' does a little dance, twirling around 'Dry Land' with her blue ribbon in hand as "La Bamba" plays. Mr. Kim was perennially disappointed by Hong-gi's flat delivery, and we rehearsed this exchange over and over and over again. The two used the repetitive interaction to get in a little old-fashioned flirting.
Hong-gi seemed particularly entranced by his partner as she twirled around him.
Here's one more shot of 'Water' at the theater waiting for her cue backstage.
We had one more rehearsal on Saturday, and then Gavin and I showed up early Sunday to get ready for the opening. Our costume was based on none other than old Rennaisance paintings of Jesus.
Gavin and I were issued identical, humiliating polyester pearl-colored nightgowns with ruffles on the collar and sleeves. They looked like what my grandmother might wear to bed. Our incessant, plaintive requests for a new costume succeeded in winning us the addition of a skyblue sash and the removal of the distasteful ruffles. The costume designers rigged my feet in silly spray-painted shoes and adorned my head in a crown of plastic ivy wrapped around pipe-cleaners. See photo at the top of this blog.
We had out makeup applied by our co-teachers. I felt honored and lucky to have the overtly narcissistic (and ridiculously gorgeous) Ms. Ha apply my makeup.
We only had two rehearsals on the stage where we were to perform the play. The lighting was a nightmare, the music miscued over and over, and some of the songs to which the children would lip-sing skipped. We needed at least two or three more rehearsals to get the timing, lights and sound squared away. The play was to go on in three hours. I braced for a disaster. Here is a photo of 'Day' poking her head out from behind a monolithic set piece to ask the director about her cue.
Here's 'Eagle' working on her lines.
At one point, I tapped one of my co-teachers, Soo-hee, on the shoulder.
"Soo-hee, do we have one more rehearsal before the first performance?" I asked in a hopeful tone. Soo-hee took the earbud from her walkie-talkie out of her ear and smiled.
"Your rehearsal will be at 3PM," she said sheepishly, meaning our first performance. Oh, great. This photo is of the dance instructor giving some final words of advice. You can always tell when the Koreans are about to undertake something for which they are ill-prepared or the odds are against them because they pump their fists in the air and yell, "Fighting!" The story goes that they picked the phrase up from American GIs during the Korean War.
Mr. Kim had the graduated third-year students play traditional Korean drums for the audience while we prepared backstage for our debut. As I took the front of the line of actors by the curtains, the rat-a-tat-tat of the snare-drums and ching-ching-ching of the brass bells thundered in the high-ceilinged room. The music flooded my heart with joy and washed away my nervousness. Yes, I was nervous. The last time I acted in anything approaching a theatrical production was my freshman year of college. It was called the Bullshit Ballet. I was cast as a Chinese prostitute. There was booze involved. Nuff said.
Still, both performances of the play went off without much trouble. There was a smoke machine that randomly went off and filled my goofy costume with pungent white vapor. The machine went off nearly constantly during 'Water's dance, obscuring her from view and causing me to worry about her loosing track of the stage and twirling headlong into the crowd. But no such disaster materialized.
While backstage for the second half of the play, I watched Gavin's performance via a closed-circuit television. Whoever was running the video camcorder was obviously not conscience of it's settings, which were on automatic. The poor machine was trying to expose for the dark red curtains, and thus all of the brightly-lit actors were washed out and indiscernable.
During the finale, both Gavin and I walked, arms outstretched, through the plants and animals to the front of the stage for the bow. This had to be confusing. This version of the creation myth was obviously Christian in origin. Many of the Koreans watching it were Christian. Christianity is officially monotheistic. One God, not two, should have been walking towards the audience. I guess people just assumed I was Jesus.
Everyone's parents showed up for the big show. They lavished praise on Gavin and I and requested pictures with their kids.
One really sad moment happened though during the photo session following the final performance. Sang-min, the cast and I were standing on stage, holding roses in our hands. Parents crowded together like paparazzi in the first few rows of seats and aimed a phalanx of technological wizardry at us. Flashes burst from all around and the buzzing, whirring and clicking of electronic devices filled the air. I looked at all the proud parents giving thumbs-ups to their children, taking pictures, and I asked Sang-min where her parents were. Sang-min looked down at her roses and then back up at me, her face fixed as strait as she could manage.
"Yogiro opsoyo. They leave. They not here," she said wistfully and looked away.
OK, well, that was the report on the play, AKA part one of SoKoNotes. I'm not sure if I'll get anything else up this week. I'll try to get the Korean files up, but don't hold your breath. I might save everything else I wanted to show and say for next week, as there isn't much happening this week. I hope everyone is doing good. --Notes
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