A staged play reading presented by Yellow Earth Theatre:
American Hwangap – by Lloyd Suh
Sun 26th Nov 3:00pm
Typhoon EAST
Rich Mix | 35 Bethnal Green Rd | London E1 6LA
Tickets from Rich Mix website
Directed by Louise Mai NewberryHwangap /huːæŋɡæp/ noun – a milestone signifying the completion of the Eastern Zodiac and a form of rebirth.
15 years ago Min Suk Chun left his family in a West Texas suburb to return to his native Korea. On the occasion of his 60th birthday he returns to his ex-wife and now adult children who must struggle to reconcile their broken past with the mercurial, verbose and exasperating patriarch now back at the head of the table.
Why Lloyd wrote the play:
I love the ritual of the hwangap – the spirt of rebirth, and the opportunity to reflect on a full lifetime lived. I wrote the play in 2005, which was the 60th birthday, or hwangap, of the divided countries of South and North Korea. The play is a personal, intimate meditation on a similar separation. The political drama of the two Koreas is of course ever shifting, always tense, and constantly dangerous. This is not a play about geopolitics, but instead my way of investigating the palpable emotional cost of such separation and distance – and how our traditions might provide the opportunity for hope and rebirth.
Lloyd Suh is a 2nd generation Korean American currently based in Brooklyn. American Hwangap has been produced by Magic Theatre (San Francisco), Ma-Yi/Play Co. (NYC), Halcyon/A-Squared (Chicago), Tanghalang Pilipino (Manila) and PCPA (Seoul). Other plays include Charles Francis Chan, Jr, Jesus in India, The Wong Kids.