This is a story about brotherly love and filial duty, complete with puppets, paintings, prose and even some Korean mysticism thrown in. Shangol-e is the older, headstrong brother and Bital-e is his younger, accident prone sibling. The two mess about, as brothers do, playing hide-n-seek and ridiculing each other, until their camaraderie is fractured by their father's death and his last wishes. Bital-e is determined to obey his father, no matter how unusual the request (to be buried in a pot under a dried up pond), whereas Shangol-e favours something more traditional (interesting echoes of Antigone, or vice-versa). Subsequently, Shangol-e disappears and Bital-e goes on a journey to meet his father in the Sea King's Palace.
The story is in Korean, but the programme distributed beforehand provides an overview of the plot and a description of each scene individually. Most of the action translates without this - bottoms are funny in any language - but the father's dying wishes, the ghost of the dead daughter and Shangol-e's reincarnation as a bull, might pass you by if you didn't have a heads up beforehand.
Kkumdongi Puppet Theatre describe their performance as 'live painting theatre', used to create a 'lyrical picture book'. The way in which they do this is effective and sometimes spellbinding. The story is told in three completely different ways. Firstly, there is a powerpoint presentation which summarises each scene in English. Next to this, a backlit screen of traditional Korean paper, onto which an unknown hand paints each of eight traditional scenes. Paper puppets on sticks become part of the painting, before they are then brought to life by their puppeteers and emerge from the painting onto the three dimensional set.
The sets themselves are colourful and magical. You could almost hear the wind whistle through the willow tree and the moonlight serenade the garden. Winter chilled the audience and the Sea King's Palace was everything an oceanic wonderland should be. The music is traditional and atmospheric as well as including an instrumental version of “The Lonely Goatherd”. Curious but effective.
The four puppeteers manage the balance between being completely invisible, whilst simultaneously portraying the facial expressions and words of their characters in such a way that the puppets seem almost real. The moments of artistry are completely absorbing and draw you into wondering what happens next.
With moments of light humour, this is essentially a gentle story about love, loss and redemption, with a plot to think about (if you are an adult) and not to worry about (if you are a child). Korean made easy and magical for all.
