Digital programme: Lear

Lear: Meet the Creatives, Fri 4 Oct 5pm (Frobisher Auditorium 1, Level 4)
An in-conversation event with leading members of the creative team, hosted by Liam Izod, a music and arts writer specialising in music from East Asia and the Indian subcontinent. Featuring Jung Young-doo, Pai Sam-shik and Han Seung-seok. Free, but ticketed.

These creative team notes were created for the March 2024 restaging of Lear, and are reused with kind permission of NCCK.

Director’s note

As I reflect on the past two years, I ponder the nature of our existence. We hope to flow like a peaceful stream, but our reality is troubled with both major and minor wars. How sad and disheartening. Observing the chaos in the world, I sometimes see parallels with my own life. In those moments, I rather wish I were as mad and as candid as Lear, freely speaking my mind; or perhaps as blind as Gloucester, shielded from witnessing the mess around him.

Life is like the journey of a long river. It begins as a clear stream in a pond, sometimes stagnating in a pool, other times merging with other currents to become something greater. Occasionally, it permeates something and evaporates without a trace. It cannot stay the same. Likewise, our lives are in constant flux: they cannot remain pristine, nor can they flow forever. We are born in the spring of life and eventually flow into the sea of death. What if we could ourselves to flow a little more slowly, with a touch more generosity? 

Lear. This story began two years ago when I embarked on the production for the first time. I felt so lost about how to start that I hit the rehearsals with no specific plans except to see ‘water,’ and a hope to glean even a vague idea of how to shape this unborn entity. I will never forget the merciless landscape surrounding the Nakdonggang River on that freezing winter day. The biting wind clawed at my face, and the river lay completely frozen, as if resolute never to flow again, its icy surface resembling solidified iron-water. It was frozen all the way down to the bottom, so it was difficult to imagine that someday it would flow again.

Two years pass. I wonder what form Lear will take this time. I’ve been more deliberate in contemplating Lear’s thoughts and emotions than for the previous production. While adhering to the same directorial vision, I have refined the details, striving for clarity and authenticity. 

But once a show graces the stage, it becomes an independent entity that moves and evolves on its own. My greatest hope is that Lear transforms into a vast, all-encompassing ocean, its currents branching into thousands of rivers, each flowing into the depths of every audience member’s soul.

Jung Young-doo, Director and Choreographer

Writer’s note

Sunday afternoon, I went for a walk. In front of the convenience store, I saw the cat – which was called Minami (Handsome) by the girl working at the convenience store – sitting on the deck. Its glossy fur had turned rather brittle over the winter, its handsome eyelids had a new scar, and its cheerful eyes had grown deep and quiet. 

At the bottom of the slope road connecting Baeksasil valley down here and Neunggeummaeul village up there, I found the large plane trees which fell down last autumn still lying there, and then, discovering that the Bukak Mountain hiking trail had been closed because it was already past 3pm, I turned around and headed to Inwang Mountain, where the winds were blowing hard along the ridges because the season was changing. People were exclaiming and laughing, swaying in the winds, there were crows hovering in the winds, doves gathering upon the Seonbawi Rock behind Guksadang shrine, and a few old ladies praying with their palms together in front of the altar under the cliff. I passed the pine woods and arrived at the Beombawi Rock (tiger-shaped rock), under which were three handfuls of peanuts neatly laid upon the Neoreokbawi Rock (broad and flat rock), and nearby an old lady with luggage containing bags of cat food and bottles of water was calling to alley cats around the castle walls. On my way down to Sajik-dong, I found some yellow millet placed in the cup-marks on another Neoreokbawi Rock, as if the cup-marks were bowls. Someone had probably put them in there to feed the ravenous birds. I felt hungry and so went to Geumcheongyo Market for a late lunch. At the next table an old couple and their son were eating when there was a quiet commotion. The old lady, who may have been under-going chemotherapy, vomited everything she had just swallowed. Her son hurriedly spread his coat to screen her. She kept retching feebly for quite a long time in a rhythm of breathing very familiar to me, and the old gentleman said quietly, to no one in particular, ‘What's wrong, what's wrong?’ I sat with my back against them, drank up my short rib soup and left the restaurant.

Spring came. I gave respect to all those who had gotten through the winter. How hard they'd been trying to stay alive in this tough world, at this desolate juncture of time! Walking home through the winds, for a short while everything, every little event of life, felt so pitiable and lonely, and therefore, so dear. I also thought about the numerous helping hands on which my life depended, imagining that William Shakespeare, who wrote the story of King Lear hundreds years before, would have felt the same.

Pai Sam-shik, Playwright

Music Director’s note

Over thirty years have passed since I decided to become a Pansori composer, delving into the theory of traditional Korean music and researching the intricacies of Changgeuk. 

Throughout the years, I have participated in numerous productions, yet composing Pansori scores remains an ongoing challenge. Each time, I grapple with the notion that I could have done better. Crafting the Pansori scores for Changgeuk’s Lear posed an even greater test. 
Unlike traditional Pansori narratives, this story brims with philosophical reflections on life, human nature, and negative emotions that stem from betrayal, conspiracy, madness, revenge and destruction. To find the melodic patterns and rhythmic structures that harmonised best with the lyrics, I experimented with variations in grace notes and ornamental phrases. For sections that resisted solutions using traditional Pansori techniques, I drew inspiration from Gyunggi-do and Seodo Minyo (folk songs), reimagining them in the style of Changgeuk.

For the accompanying instrumental music, I orchestrated a collaboration between traditional Korean instruments and their western counterparts, aiming to accentuate both drama and vocal performance. Composer Jung Jae-il’s genius resulted in exquisite ensembles blending Pansori, piano and strings, which sound so harmonious and natural that they seem to have always co-existed.

For this production, I intentionally emphasised the dramatic impact of the Pansori singing by selectively removing a few instruments. I heightened the intensity of the drama by partially or entirely omitting certain Pansori sections. In Lear’s aria set in the snowy wasteland, I added a second verse to poignantly convey Lear’s anguish at losing everything.

‘Every life suffers.’

Lear’s cry, piercing through the dark, stormy wilderness, still resonates in my heart. A desperate cry that pierces into the heart of all creatures suffering from the burden of staying alive! I hope that the Pansori and music of this Changgeuk Lear will open the hearts of all those in pain, letting them escape from greed and conflict into a restful, if brief,  peace.

Han Seung-seok, Pansori Composer and Music Director