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Tuesday, November 12, 2024

Yoo Seung-ho debuts in play “Angels in America” after 25 years.

The play “” currently being performed at LG Arts Center in Seoul until the 28th of next month lasts for about 200 minutes, including two intermissions. It extends to a total of 8 hours, including “Part Two.” Director Shin Yoo-chung’s characters in this play “speak tirelessly” during this time.

Furthermore, the material may seem somewhat unfamiliar to Korean audiences in 2024. Set in the United States during the conservative Reagan era of 1985, the play features an ultra-right social atmosphere, strong faith and traditions of Mormons and Jews, the spread of AIDS and the associated fear, and the anxiety of the LGBTQ+ community. If one is not familiar with this era and material, could they understand the play?

Shin Yoo-chung cited the from the 8th century BC and 19th-century Russian literature as examples of works that transcend time and borders to move people’s hearts. Tony Kushner, a Jewish LGBTQ+ author who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1993 for , embedded universal human struggles and conflicts into a special historical context. The story of marginalized individuals who face rejection and suffering, create an atmosphere where those who think differently are silenced, ponder between belief and reality, and continue from unscientific guesses about the causes of infectious diseases to witch hunts, transcends a specific era and society.

Key characters include AIDS-stricken LGBTQ+ activist Prior, his lover Louis who wants to leave him due to caregiver exhaustion, devoted Mormon Joe suppressing his true identity under his faith, his wife Harper addicted to tranquilizers, and hardline conservative lawyer Roy on the path to success. Despite their seemingly disconnected lives, their stories are interwoven on stage in a back-and-forth manner, slowly intertwining. While the characters’ stories are realistic, fantastical situations occasionally unfold on stage. Whether Prior is hallucinating during his illness or Harper is under the influence of drugs, the fantasies come as a religious revelation in the midst of bewildering reality.

All characters’ stories are compelling and not wasted. Among them, lawyer Roy, who is close to being a “villain,” piques curiosity. Despite being afflicted with AIDS, he claims to have liver cancer, and despite being LGBTQ+, he derides himself as a heterosexual engaging in sex for fun. He believes that his influence, not his identity, defines him. Roy is a real person. Known as the “Devil’s Advocate,” Roy Cohn contributed to the execution of the Rosenbergs as spies during the McCarthyist era and led the purge of LGBTQ+ individuals despite being one himself. Cohn was an early lawyer for Donald Trump and a close friend. In the 2003 HBO series, Al Pacino played the role of Roy. In this play, Lee Hyo-jung and Kim Ju-ho are double-cast as Roy.

Yoo Seung-ho and Son Ho-joon play the roles of Prior. For Yoo Seung-ho, who debuted in 2000 with the drama ““, this work marks his first theater stage. While Yoo Seung-ho had no trouble portraying the agony of illness, he lacked the sensitivity to create a subtle atmosphere of emotional conflict with his lover Louis and a cynical attitude towards his own situation. Jung Hye-in and Go Jun-hee appear as Harper. This is also Go Jun-hee’s debut theater stage. Hwang Suk-hee, a famous film translator, is responsible for translating the play.

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