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Globe to Globe Blog: Jo Caird on a Korean Dream & the first production from a brand new nation

Having attended the press launch of Globe to Globe way back in September, interviewed various of the companies involved and written a handful of articles about the festival over the past few months, it's fair to say that I was looking forward to the start of the fun. Thirty-seven international companies performing all thirty-seven of Shakespeare's plays in thirty-seven different languages is an ambitious undertaking whichever way you look at it, and that's before you even begin to consider the details of the individual productions.

It all kicked off nearly two weeks ago with a production of Venus and Adonis by South African company, Isango Ensemble, and since then Globe audiences have been treated to a remarkably diverse range of work, including a Russian Measure for Measure, a Hindi Twelfth Night and Richard III in Mandarin. I'll be seeing some of the remaining shows and sharing my thoughts about them and the festival as a whole via this blog over the next five weeks.

My first taste of the action was Seoul-based Yohangza Theatre Company's spirited telling of A Midsummer Night's Dream. In this production, which was first seen in the UK at the Barbican in 2006, the fairies were Dokkebi, mischevious goblins from Korean folklore. Titania and Oberon's roles had been reversed, Puck was represented by a pair of naughty twin spirits and Bottom was an old woman herb collector turned into a pig by the Fairy Queen. Theseus and Hippolyta, as well as the Mechanicals, were nowhere to be seen.

Director Yang Jung-Ung's production was fast-paced and funny. The flavour was resolutely Korean but Shakespeare's drama of romantic confusion and mischief remained entirely recognisable to a western audience, despite only a handful of surtitles providing brief scene synopses. There were a few jokes that went over the heads of non-Korean speakers in the audience, but the vast majority of the laughs were physical and therefore enjoyed by all.

The entire cast was brilliant to watch in this regard, but Kim Sang-bo and Jeon Jung-Yong as the Puck figure Duduri never missed a trick. Their facial expressions alone provoked peals of laughter; in full clowning mode, they had the Globe audience howling with delight. The whole ensemble also made good use of the theatre's unique layout to work the crowd, coming out into the yard to play with the enthusiastic standees, while not forgetting to engage with the audience in the galleries.

With its impressive choreography (by Lee Yun-Jung), joyful moments of comedy and simple storytelling, it's no surprise that this colourful production has gone down so well both at home in Korea and internationally.

Next up was last night's Cymbeline in Juba Arabic, a production overbrimming with political, historical and cultural significance. It was the first international production from the South Sudan Theatre Company, a group specially formed for Globe to Globe just months after South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in July 2011.

Cymbeline, one of Shakespeare's lesser performed plays, is set in Britain at the time of the Celts, but there's plenty in the story that speaks to South Sudanese culture. Warfare, magic and battles over inheritance all abound in a complex plot that revolves around a secret marriage between Imogen, King Cymbeline's only daughter, and her commoner lover Posthumus. Aside from the drumming and dancing that book-ended the performance, however, there was little in the production that marked it out as particularly South Sudanese. Staging was traditional, unadventurous even, with full weight given to the play's many lengthy monologues.

But although less immediately accessible to a international audience than A Midsummer Night's Dream, Derik Uya Alfred and Joseph Abuk's production (Abuk is billed as translator as well as co-director) shone when it came to the play's sillier moments. Korino Justin as Posthumus's servant Pisanio, and Buturs Peter, as the lothario Jackimo, both gave irreverant performances that lightened the occasionally ponderous plotting. The final scene, in which an implausible number of characters reveal their true identities and motives, bordered on hysteria, with the cast playing the comedy for all they were worth.

This may not have been a sophisticated or polished telling of the play, but that didn't matter. As the cast danced and ululated their way through several curtain calls, the audience were swept up in the palpable joy of a theatre company representing their brand new nation on the internataional stage for the first time. Last night's production is exactly what this festival is for.

- by Jo Caird

Any opinions expressed above do not represent the view of Whatsonstage.com nor any of its staff or contributors beyond the bylined author.

Jo Caird is a freelance arts journalist and has been deputy Off-West End editor of Whatsonstage.com since June 2009. Jo tweets at @JoCaird. Her personal website is JoCaird.com

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	Globe to Globe Blog: Jo Caird on As You Like It & Love's Labour's Lost - 2nd Jun 2012 blog
	Jo Caird: Theatre goes green - 27th Feb 2012 blog
	Jo Caird: Three cheers for the NT & subsidised theatre - 22nd Feb 2012 blog
	Jo Caird: Should there be a SOLT for London's Off West End? - 15th Feb 2012 blog
	Jo Caird: Survey puts Fringe audiences in the spotlight - 8th Feb 2012 blog
	Jo Caird: The trouble with statistics - 2nd Feb 2012 blog
	Jo Caird: The changing face of arts journalism - 24th Jan 2012 blog
	Jo Caird: My top 100 theatre people to follow on Twitter - 19th Jan 2012 blog
	Jo Caird: Why Can't We Resist Adaptations of Children's Classics? - 9th Jan 2012 blog
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