The Angel and the Woodcutter

Published Monday 6 August 2007 at 12:15 by Brian G Cooper

Cho-in Theatre Seoul established its UK reputation at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2006 with its superb mime production, The Train. Author-director Park Chung-euy’s adaptation of a tragic yet hopeful Korean folk tale, to reflect the country’s 20th-century experience of war and occupation, performed by the five-member cast with emotional intensity, certainly enhances that reputation.

A beautiful angel - Korean ‘heavenly being’ - visits an elderly mother and her woodcutter son, who live in a forest to escape their misdeeds. Marrying the young man, she has their son, but the sudden impact of war turns family bliss into refugee misery. When the son is forced into uniform, the angel becomes a prostitute to save her son and the mother. At an army camp, the son recoils from her but returns her heavenly clothes, and the angel-mother with her son finally stands defiant against war and hate.

Lee Sang-hee (The Angel), Song Kyeong-soon (Mother) and Lee Daehyuk (Woodcutter) inter-weave with immense skill and theatrical presence. Their enthralling mime and movement, richly blending traditional and contemporary Oriental and Western forms to Cho Sun-hyoung’s haunting Korean music collage, sensitively proclaims universal themes of compassion and hope.