Modern Asian adaptations of Shakespeare’s classic plays are characterized by a unique visual and production style. It is rooted in the region’s past and present and uses traditional aesthetics, language, and means of expression to adapt Western plots to the Asian scene. Oh Tae-suk’s Romeo and Juliet, which premiered in the time of the inter-Korean tension, adopts this unique style to speak about the country’s present through the tales of the past. The play uses a combination of Western, traditional Korean, and modern elements to recreate Shakespeare’s masterpiece in the image of pre-modern Korea.
Korean theatrical tradition
Korean theater was originally based more on performance than drama. Traditional plays had no well-defined plot and involved dances, elements of shaman rituals, and circus. Actors usually wore masks, performing a loosely fixed text through dialogues, dance, and song. In the 19th century, when Korea opened its doors to foreign countries, Western plays, including Shakespeare’s, started to be produced. Initially, there was a clear distinction between the traditional Korean theater and the new wave. Over the years, contemporary Korean theater has been formed that includes a number of forms and genres. In Shakespeare productions, the Western-style realism started to be mixed with traditional dramatic forms in the middle of the 20th century. Shakespeare is now the most performed Western playwright on the Korean stage, and, moreover, his plays have become a conduit through which Korean theatre can be acknowledged by the international audience (Seong-kwan 2). Modern adaptations of Shakespeare are characterized by a distinctive style that mixes Western and traditional Korean methods and techniques.
Oh Tae-suk’s Romeo and Juliet
Oh Tae-suk is a South-Korean playwright and director, well-known for his masterful portrayal of modern Korean life and the use of the elements of the traditional Korean theater in his plays. On stage, his characters do not carry on static, realistic conversations but rather engage in vibrant song and dance, wearing masks and exaggerated make-up. He directed two adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays: The Tempest and Romeo and Juliet, in which both the setting and the theatrical means are adapted to the Asian audience.
Oh Tae-suk’s adaptation of Romeo and Juliet is set in a Korean town during the rule of the Joseon dynasty, long before the 1948 division of Korea. The plot of Shakespeare’s play — two lovers struggling to be together amidst a family conflict — is seen as an analog of the Korean situation. According to critics, Oh’s adaptation was designed as an apology to Korea’s youth from the older generations for their failure to resolve their country’s troubles (Joublin). Throughout the play, the director uses a number of techniques to recreate the Western plot within Korea’s theatrical traditions and the modern agenda.
Visual style
From the visual perspective, the play is a collision of styles and modes. The set presents a wooden courtyard with paper lanterns; the main characters are dressed in the traditional Korean style, and the props remind of the pre-industrial era. On the other hand, the Montague and Capulet youths are dressed as extras from a pop-culture pan-Asian martial arts movie, and the fight scene is staged in a filmic slo-mo (Walkling). The play also features some other details from the later era: the photographs of the dead and the spraying of disinfectant that drag the viewers into the mid-20th century.
Oh Tae-suk also uses colors symbolically, which is characteristic of traditional Korean performances. After the deaths of Mercutio and Tybalt, Juliet appears in a blowing, cloudlike white silk sheet that spreads to the edges of the stage. White symbolizes purity and death, as in traditional Korean funerals, mourners wore white hemp robes (Walkling). Performers are dressed in colorful clothes, which is typical for Korean theater. Other symbols are also used, such as a dragon and a serpent, depicted on a canvas screen, which are mythical creatures from Korean folklore that symbolize the harmony between yin and yang (Cruxent et al. 86). Overall, the play’s visual style is distinctively Korean and is not reminiscent of Shakespearean times.
Direction
Oh Tae-suk’s direction is characterized by playfulness, which is typical for traditional Korean performances. In his review of the play, Yoon Min-sik observes that the adaptation “takes on a completely new form; one of the traditional Korean maganggeul (outdoor play and performance) that combines humor and almost musical-like dance performances” (para. 2). The playwright uses a combination of color, light, movement, and traditional music, performed live on traditional instruments, to recreate the pre-modern Korean setting.
Although the setting, music, dances, and costumes are distinctively Korean, the connection to Shakespeare’s original can also be observed. La Rhee argues that Shakespeare himself also used similar methods to engage his audience, including stage techniques, popular tradition, and culture familiar to the Elizabethan viewers (La Rhee). The dialog between Eastern and Western culture is created on the level of direction rather than the similarities in the visual and production styles.
Genre
Another characteristic of the play, which is typical for the Korean theater, is the mix of drama and comedy. The beauty of the scene with Juliet in a white dress mourns the death of her cousin is underscored by the appearance of the nurse, a previously comical character. She is also overwhelmed by grief for the death of her own husband, taking the audience with her to the depths of her despair. However, when the dramatic tension reaches its climax, she pulls out a bottle, downs it in one swig, and announces, “Oh, I need a vodka!” Exaggerated movements and line delivery throughout the play also sometimes produce a comic effect. In the traditional Asian drama, this mode mixing is used because the culture demands that there should be no extremes, and comedy and drama should be balanced (Walkling). Oh Tae-suk uses this technique to create a starker contrast between the comedic elements and the tragic end of the play.
Another characteristic of Oh Tae-Suk’s adaptation is the omission of speech. This technique is intended to make viewers fill in the gaps themselves, based on the “belief that a play should ultimately be created in the minds of the audience,” which is characteristic of Korean indigenous plays (Some More Shakespeare in Korea). It is used to contrast the ‘logocentric’ Western theater and emphasize the play’s adherence to the more stylized and ritualized Eastern theatrical tradition.
Critique
The play received generally positive reviews from both Korean and European critics. It was praised for its unique visual style, the implementation of traditional Korean theater and folklore, and the portrayal of characters. La Rhee notes that On Tae-suk “accurately interprets Shakespearean devices in the source text and employs methodologies drawn from his own culture as well as Elizabethan culture” (La Rhee). Oh Tae-suk’s rendition of the play was even acknowledged as representative of Korean culture on the international stage (Seong-kwan 92). The negative comments were primarily connected with the somewhat inappropriate use of the modern visual elements, such as a slo-mo martial arts scene (Joubin), and the playwright’s explicit reliance on Korean methods (Some More Shakespeare in Korea). Overall, the play was regarded as a success, and Oh Tae-suk’s style received critical acclaim.
Conclusion
In his adaptation, Oh Tae-suk uses many elements of traditional Korean theater and specific Asian performance genres. The play involves a lot of dances and fight scenes that are not typical for Western theater. Korean-style traditional music is used alongside more modern musical pieces. The elements of modern Korean theater include genre-bending and visual humor that is used more often than one expects from a conventional Shakespearean performance (Joublin). The play also incorporates some cinematic elements, such as a slo-mo martial arts scene. Features from traditional Korean theater and folklore are combined with the Western approach to performance. The resemblance between the Western original play and the adaptation can also be observed on the production level. Rather than merely giving Shakespeare ‘straight,’ Oh Tae-suk employs popular tradition, culture, and Korean traditional dramatic forms as a means to draw his audience into the play. Likewise, Shakespeare also affected his audience in similar ways, such as using stage techniques, popular tradition, and cultural elements familiar to the Elizabethan audience. Overall, Oh Tae-suk creates his own language to communicate with his audience and initiate a dialog between the Eastern and Western cultures.
Works Cited
Cruxent, Charlene, et al. “Play Review: Romeo and Juliet.” Cahiers Elisabethains: A Journal of English Renaissance Studies, vol. 100, no. 1, 2019, pp. 86–89.
Joubin, Alexa Alice. Romeo and Juliet. Global Spakespeares, n.d.
Min-sik, Yoon. ‘Romeo and Juliet’ Retold with Wit, Humor and Dance. The Korea Herald,2017.
Seong-kwan, Cho. Shakespeare and the South Korean Stage. 2014. University of Warwick, PhD dissertation.
Some More Shakespeare in Korea. Seoul Stages, 2011.
Walkling, Saffron Vickers. “‘Romeo and Juliet’ Korean Style.”Shakespeare Travels, 2010.