Gimpo


... entering the gym doors of Gimpo South Korean Boys Schoo we found ourselves backstage ... Yura greeted us warmly ... she had the aura of focused calm yet excited pre-show anxiousness ... a contained nervous energy ... she smiled & exclaimed as i embraced her, “Enjoy the show!” ...

 ... i remembered long ago waiting with Henry & Susan, esteemed veterans of the stage ... Henry turned to me commenting - “only those who have been backstage can know this feeling” ... I recognized in Yura the apprehension, the vulnerability, the joy & the breath of time waiting backstage ...

 ... Yura for the first time was dipping her toes into the way of the actor ...

 ... we (her father, aunt & uncle) made our way to the designated audience seats ... we had been placed ob the gym stage ... the light & sound crew just behind us ... an impressive scrim, a line of facing white chairs and four towering lighting trees created  a formidable performance thrust space ...

 ... Odysseus the one searching a path was projected bon what looked like the mast of a ship ... it was the matinee performance ... the premiere had been in the morning & the director was giving last minute instructions to individual actors ... the actors disappeared & moments later a hundred or so middle year boys, with their teachers, restless and rambunctious flooded in ...

 ... what followed was a powerful renderings the Homer epic ... the soundscape, the projections, the masks & props ... the singing & dancing wove a clever moving lyrical narrative ... here was an ensemble fully & deeply committed to the sharing of their story .,.

 ::Note:: ... have much more to write ... just a reminder ... "as is often the case in periods where modern theatrical practice is changing, productions of Greek tragedies were used as a means to experiment with emerging proto-expressionist ideas" (Monaghan p. 44) ...

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