A Korean boy is ushered into a new house by his adopted American father. This new house belongs to an American boxer and her wife. American father un-adopts boy by a single signature on a piece of paper. But just before he leaves the new house, ex-father discovers that the new parents, to whom he … [Read More]
Booklist: Drama
Partial list of theatrical plays and other scripted performance pieces, both in translation and originally written in English.
The Apology
I exist now. Don’t tell me that I didn’t exist before. How should a nation apologise for the crimes of its past? Seoul, 1991. She kept her silence for over forty years. Then Sun-Hee spoke out, igniting a fire that burns to this day. Yuna is about to uncover a shameful family secret. Priyanka, the … [Read More]
Straight White Men / Untitled Feminist Show
“Young Jean Lee’s Untitled Feminist Show is one of the more moving and imaginative works I have ever seen on the American stage…what makes it so transcendent is its delicious ability to alternate the pain of being different with a sense of humor about lives not lived among the status quo.” —Hilton Als, New Yorker … [Read More]
Butterfly Sleep
From the publisher’s website: Kim Kyung Ju’s allegorical drama Butterfly Sleep refracts a critique of South Korea’s headlong development through a mixture of magic realism and absurdist dark humor set early in the Joseon dynasty. With lyricism and grace, Kim unfolds a lesson of consolation by confrontation, and finally reconciliation, with the ghosts of the … [Read More]
Wild Goose Dreams
Nanhee is a North Korean defector whose family was left behind in North Korea. Minsung is a South Korean goose father whose family has left him behind in South Korea. Nanhee and Minsung find each other on the internet. A story about modern aspirations and their betrayals, Wild Goose Dreams explores the miracle of quiet intimacy among … [Read More]
Bred from the Eyes of a Wolf
Equal parts poetry, drama, and sci-fi, award-winning poet Kim Kyung Ju’s verse play BRED FROM THE EYES OF A WOLF follows a post-apocalyptic family of wolves (indistinguishable from humans) forced to taxidermy their own cubs in order to survive. An allegory for the degraded social relations of the present, Kim Kyung Ju’s all-too-familiar dystopia partitions … [Read More]
Among the Dead
Ana is a Korean American who travels to Seoul in 1975 to retrieve her recently deceased father’s ashes. Luke is a young American soldier fighting in the jungles of Myanmar in 1944. Number Four is the name of a Korean comfort woman camping out on a bridge in Seoul in 1950, waiting for the return … [Read More]
The Song of Ch’unhyang: Musical Text as compiled by Master Singer Kim Yŏn-su
The Song of Ch’unhyang is one of the most popular p’ansori pieces in the genre’s classic repertoire. Its story is simple. Ch’unhyang (“Spring-Fragrance”) is the beautiful daughter of a deceased aristocrat and Wŏlmae, a retired kisaeng. Her ambiguous social status becomes the key dramatic complication when she falls in love with Yi Mongnyong, the young … [Read More]
You For Me For You
As they attempt to flee the Best Nation in the World, North Korean sisters Minhee and Junhee are torn apart at the border. Each must race across time and space to be together again – navigating the perilous Land of the Free and the treacherous terrain of personal belief. Food has learned to sprint. Money … [Read More]
A Grand Retreat and Other Plays
From the publisher’s website: This selection of plays offers an overview of Lee Gun-sam’s attempts to portray the socially-underprivileged people’s ‘heroic’ struggle to assert their human dignity in a society swarming with time-serving snobs and hypocrites. Lee Gun-sam’s heartstring was always attached to those who remain honest to themselves and fight for their moral principles. … [Read More]
The Clowns
From the publisher’s website: 이 (爾) (The Clowns) by Kim Tae-woong premiered in 2000 and is today considered one of Korea’s most famous dramas. Awards include: Best Play by the Dong-a Ilbo newspaper; Best Production by the Organization of Korean Theaters, and Best Play by the Seoul Arts Festival. Mr. Kim was lauded as one … [Read More]
Kim’s Convenience
Mr. Kim is a first-generation Korean immigrant and the proud owner of Kim’s Convenience, a variety store located in the heart of downtown Toronto’s Regent Park neighbourhood. As the neighbourhood quickly gentrifies, Mr. Kim is offered a generous sum of money to sell — enough to allow him and his wife to finally retire. But … [Read More]
Seven Contemporary Plays from the Korean Diaspora in the Americas
From the publisher’s website: Showcasing the dynamism of contemporary Korean diasporic theater, this anthology features seven plays by second-generation Korean diasporic writers from the United States, Canada, and Chile. By bringing the plays together in this collection, Esther Kim Lee highlights the themes and styles that have enlivened Korean diasporic theater in the Americas since … [Read More]
Modern Korean Drama: An Anthology
From the publisher’s website: Carefully selected and represented, the plays in this collection showcase both the fantastic and the realistic innovations of Korean dramatists during a time of rapid social and historical change. Stretching from 1962 to 2004, these seven works tackle major subjects, such as the close of the Choson dynasty and the aftermath … [Read More]
Allegory of Survival: The Theater of Kang-baek Lee
From the publisher’s website: In the civil and government upheaval of the 1960s and 1970s in Korea, Kang-baek Lee began his distinguished playwriting career. He is perhaps best known as the premier writer of social commentary in the form of allegories in an effort to circumvent extremely strict censorship laws which were heavily enforced until … [Read More]
Four Contemporary Korean Plays
From the publisher’s website: South Korean drama has received considerable attention in Europe and Asia, but, until recently, received only scant attention in the United States. This anthology contains early works (1989-1993) by one of Korea’s leading theatre artists. These works reflect the nature of Lee Yun Taek’s genius, his contributions to contemporary Korean theatre … [Read More]