Critically acclaimed at last years Fringe and fresh from a successful run at the Avignon Festival, Koreas Cho-In Theatre return with their heartbreaking movement piece. Sensitively told, it is a stunning production that seriously examines the human cost of conflict.
Adapted from the traditional folk tale of the same name, The Angel and the Woodcutter depicts the story of a mother and son who, chancing upon an angel bathing in the mountain streams, steal her winged cloak and force her to remain on earth. Doing away with the romance of the traditional tale, Chung-euy Parks production shows the fierce struggle of wills between the angel and the mother. The angel fights hard, first for freedom, then for privacy with her new husband, but the mother eventually tames her into submission, determined to make a perfect wife for her beloved son.
Shortly after the birth of the angel and the woodcutters child, the woodcutter is forced to go to war. The angel and mother must settle their quarrels and work together to survive in desperate circumstances. Forced to flee their home and abused by masked soldiers, the only glimmer of hope in the two womens lives is in the innocence of the child.
The tale is presented entirely without words, relying instead on exquisite choreography and a powerful yet varied score. The simple but striking set transforms neatly from home to battlefield, and the tech is brilliantly designed to flow from soft romanticism to traumatic scenes of drama. Kang-yeon Jo, Kyeong-soon Song and Sang-hee Lee, as the woodcutter, his mother and the angel, all display superb skill at their craft and the result is a gorgeous feat of physicality. Sang-hee Lee, in particular, brings desperate strength as well as heart-rending sincerity to her role as the angel. This is a thoroughly rich production, staged with supreme grace and intense poignancy.
