Yohangza’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Shakespeare’s “Home”

Abstract

Yohangza’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream conveniently took elements from both Shakespeare and traditional theatres in order to reinvent their pseudo-traditional form of performance that had previously eleminated those borrowed elements from their original contexts. The director, Yang Jung-ung, almost rewrote his simple non-poetic version of the Shakespeare comedy, which presents a short and funny story of the four lovers and Ajumi, discarding Act Five in the original comedy. Yang created a singular gesture for the performance by strategically assembling elements from various traditional theatres such as Hak dance and talchum. In doing so, Yang attempted to bring forth a namely “theatre of emotion” focused on showing images rather than speech, and he also intended to create a festive atmosphere that led the audience to interact with the actors who constantly traverse into the auditorium and speak to them, a tradition observed in talchum and madanggeuk performance. At the Globe theatre in London 2012, Yohangza succeeded in creating such a spirited atmosphere, probably thanks to the openness of the theatre, in which interaction between the stage and the auditorium has been routine. It was even suggested by Yong Li Lan that the performance created shinmyeong, from her observation that every audience member was highly spirited. At Shakespeare’s “home” only, Yohangza successfully executed the type of performance they had been attempted to achieve.