[Asia Economy Reporter Park Byung-hee] The 10th Seoul Future Theater Festival (Executive Committee Chair Ji Chun-sung · Artistic Director Moon Sam-hwa) will be held from October 20 to November 2 at the complex cultural arts space Haenghwatang.
Until 2018, the Seoul Future Theater Festival focused on discovering emerging directors and promoting international theater exchanges. Since last year, it has opened its doors wide to participants from emerging to mid-career artists, aiming to discover works that will lay the foundation for future theater with new theatrical sensibilities.
This year, five works will be staged at the Seoul Future Theater Festival. The five performances were selected through first-round document screening and second-round live performance evaluation from more than twice the number of submissions compared to last year.
"Eureureongdaeneun Eunhasu" (The Growling Milky Way) is a play by Park Bon, a playwright residing in Germany, which won the Berlin Theater Festival Award in 2017. Featuring ten speakers including a warning alien, Kim Jong-un who cannot understand the world, and a sober Donald Trump, the play passionately addresses Earthlings living in a rapidly changing era across time and space.
"Moving People" is a play that starts from the ingenious imagination of what if individuals had the power to choose the country they would become citizens of. It raises questions about the relationship between the state and the individual, human dignity, and freedom.
The setting of "Sitting in a Room" is the near future, with Genie, who survived the third pandemic, as the protagonist. Genie experiences various confusions while meeting her digitally recreated sister.
"An Enemy of the People" is based on the play by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. Director Jeong Seung-hyun restructured the play based on letters exchanged between Ibsen and his acquaintances when he wrote "An Enemy of the People." A fierce conflict arises when it is revealed that the hot spring water in a village preparing for hot spring development has been contaminated.
"The Last Actor" is a work that features the imaginative premise of the world's only remaining last actor beginning a final performance to commemorate theater. "The Last Actor" is an audience-participatory performance. Based on a newly restructured script that deconstructs and reassembles 50 classic plays such as Hamlet and The Three Sisters along with their characters, the audience and actors complete the play together. Audience members participate in the play using dialogue cards received upon entry.
The performances will be held at Haenghwatang, a complex cultural arts space transformed from an old bathhouse into an exhibition and performance venue. Tickets can be purchased through Interpark Ticket, and inquiries can be made to the Seoul Theater Association.
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