PRESS and REVUES

March 2008 in Scene Nationale Evreux Louvier/France

The Odysee of the Korean People, Michel Vinaver’s first play

It is a theatre story woven by all the fibers of the Big History.  A story born in a world of the cold war and makes its way in the web of our world today.  50 years of back and forth between France, Korea and United States.  A play written by Vinaver about the Korean war written in 1956 and directed in 2006 by a Seoul company Wuturi.
Today the show is visible in France in Louviers, invited by Jacques Falguiere who is directing in parallel Michel Vinaver’s last play, September 11. The two end of the rope are tied up..
In 1955, Michel Vinaver, who we discover everyday that he is our most important playwright, is 28 years old.  He is just a young writer, protégé of Albert Camus(…).
Why Korea rather than Indochina, where history is linked more specifically to France?  “ At that time, a young writer could not talk about Indochina without taking sides, and I was not, and will never be, a political writer.  I wanted to give a voice, an image, of this political and human catastrophe, without taking sides.  More than Indochina, Korea seemed to me a more absurd conflict, imposed to Korean people whom had not much to do with it(…).the play where the French soldiers kill as they talk and talk as they kill, is first forbidden, and then directed by Roger Planchon and Jean Marie Serreau…(…)”
50 years later, many individual stories cross path which will unable the Korean people to repossess this collective History.  In New York, a young French woman, Marion Schoevaert, who promotes modern French playwrights, is working on Les Coreens experimenting with Propaganda and theater.

In The Ritual Tradition

In Seoul, a playwright Kim Kwang Lim, exiled himself to the United States during the military dictatorship, and then build his Wuturi company with the goal of” reinventing a national theatrical identity, completely erased by the American colonization”  the objective: to create a modern theater of high level, rooted in ritual and shaman tradition.

In Paris, Vinaver, a winter night of 2005, goes to the Cartoucherie of Vincennes to see a show given by Wuturi.  He comes out “completely seduced by this sedimentation of Korean culture, this junction between music and dance and text”.  He calls Marion Schoevaert, whom he appreciates the work.  She just fell in love with a Korean actor, from New York(…).
Few month later, in November 2006, the show, the emblem of the history made 50 years earlier between Korea, France and United States, directed by Marion schoevaert and the young Byun Jung Joo. Surpassing the theatre rules, it created a lot if interest and curiosity within the intellectual and artistic community and a kind of stupefaction from the general public.
“  at least two generations have been raised in south Korea with anti communist propaganda and a negation of History, says Jung Joo.  The simple fact to present a story which doesn’t take sides, but is still in its historical context, the north Korean soldiers shown as humans and not as demons, was received quite violently by the public.”
‘ All subject about North Korea is completely taboo, in the south,’ explains Marion, ‘it is in NY that I did all the research for the show.  Even if there is no direct censure on the shows, there is not in Korea a culture of words, of freedom of thoughts.  The censure in in the heads,”

In Korea, the show was not reprogrammed.  It scared the producers, by its form, foreign to the public who is stuffed with American soap operas, and in its content, which from 1955, took  the side of History and Humanity rather than the side of ideology.  In Louviers the night of the premiere, it triumphed.
Fabienne Drage, Le Monde 31 mars 2008.

In Louviers, a unique occasion to discover Vinaver

Wuturi, an energetic, inventive and just genius company from Seoul, took the play at heart.  And here is the incredible. Long time ago, it was written far away from the conflict by a young leftist writer during the cold war, who made the south the aggressor, this text becomes, without betraying it, a kind of tradition, an offering to peace.   The Seoul company conceived it as a shaman ritual:  no need to know who invades whom.  Here is the time of forgiveness, of burial, of remembering, of reconciliation and of vitality.

Moreover, because of this revisited play, the Korean actors and directors symbolically reunify the peninsula.  With martial movements, a North Korean reference to the collective shows from 1945 with Kim Il Sung and son, are mixed with rich and traditional culture from the “turtle state”, all with grace and energy.  Martial arts, various rich and originals dances, but specially the pansori, this narrative singing, epic and poetic, the true hearbeat of the country of the morning calm.  The drummer from the show establishes many references to puk, and to the cycle of pansori: the kyemonyonjo (sadness and burial), and kyundurum (joy) and many more.  Belair, lost in the forest finds the myth of one of most famous pansori, the one of Simcheong, thrown into the water where she finishes her life married to the king of the sea.  Michel Vinaver build in 1955 a play that allows today Korean actors to recapture their traditional culture endangered by  the Yankee’s invasion.(….)
By Antoine Perraud published  28/03/08  internet critique

(…) The city of Louviers is honored to welcome the Korean troup. In every civil war, you must say things to cure the woundS.  You, artists, by your work are curing this wound. (…)   says Frank Martin the maire of Louviers.

Paris Normandie, march 29, 2008

Also, previews in the following newspapers:
Euros Info, February 20, 2008, Le Monde March 11, 2008, Telerama, March 26 2008, Du cotre D’evreux , march 2008, L’Actu march 30, 2008 , Cuture Corenne Fall 2008, La Gazette Jaune, Fall 2008, Ubu, theater magazine spring 2009, France 3 television

November 2006 in Seong Art Center/ Seoul

“Bravo for striving towards independence! 
We can see that directors strive to express an independent identity through using the traditional movements and music. The first scene of the performance was like watching a scene of modern dance and it expressed the abstract images of war very powerfully, which cannot be felt in the real theater pieces. The marriage between Korean traditional instruments and clarinet / accordion, shows the harmony of modernity.  The rhythmic dialogues first give a sense of an awkwardness to the audience, but as the performance progresses it gives the chance of feeling the rich rhythm of the Korean language.  The existence of the actors (as witness of the action) on stage, increase the effect of the ritual like the candles on both side of the stage. Their efforts to search for a new style is the work to ensure our existence, not only in Korea but also in the world.  That why it is a very important work and I applaud their efforts.” Ha Hyun Joo, TIS Theater In Seoul

“The performance of Wuturi players matches to their motto ‘the modernization of traditions’.  It includes Korean performance style and colors. It was a re-creation of the feeling of the familiar but also created the foreignness (of war)”.
Sung Min Suk Performance and the Theory. Winter 2006.

“The chance meeting with Choe JunHo, and the performance of Korean  People with Wuturi Players was a joyful news for Michel Vinaver.  The Wuturi Players are concentrating on developing a vocabulary with body movements, with the Korean traditional music for modernized method of theater. Either way, Korean traditional performance or modern theatre style, the meeting between the Wuturi players and the French director is an experiment and a challenge”.
Lee Eun Mi, the Korean Theatre. TKT

« This performance made me cry »
« I’m not a nationalist, but I felt great compassion for the communist village leader. »
« Excellente performance by actors especially by the village leader”
«  Two hours without interruption, actors run, sing in between the audiences’ seats, it has been a while since we saw such excellente theater »
Internet critique

« song, soup, sport and games… through simple kids’ game, this play really expresses the pain, the violent storm the horror that Koreans felt. » 

Munwha newspaper

« the meeting between the traditional Korean theater, Wuturi rythm and the french director has supassed all the clichets of cultural exchanges…. This play forces north and south Korea to review their own history.» Sae Gae newspaper

« it is an experience and a challenge to develop traditional ceremonies into a formal piece of theater … it is a physical theatre which expresses by movements the modern reality» Korea theater review.