Two one-act plays by local expat playwrights take to the Seoul stage from Saturday, in a project that sees Seoul Players show off their writing as well as their stage talents.
The two plays have their share of laughs, but will leave audiences something to contemplate, said co-producer Kim Schroeder.
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“Rent, Boy” (Robert Michael Evans) |
The first, “Rent, Boy” by Raymond C. Salcedo, is a comedy of errors and unpaid debts centered on youth and bad behavior.
“It‘s a wonderful journey. It’s kind of a dramedy. It has wonderful comic moments but it also has very beautiful dramatic moments that are well executed because both plays have really strong casts of actors,” Schroeder said.
The second play, Daniel Kennedy’s “Water Weight,” provides an intriguing synopsis: “A disturbed woman crashes her car in to a diner, further complicating the mystery of how ‘The Stranger’ will gain entrance to the only available toilet.”
Though this may sound like a straight comedy, Schroeder said it developed beyond that.
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“Walter Weight” (Robert Michael Evans) |
“It begins to look like a comedy, and then it turns into something a bit more serious,” she said. “The moment and the journey the audience goes through while watching these plays is something else.”
Seoul Players’ 10-minute play festival takes submissions from around the world each fall, but Schroeder said she and fellow co-producer Kevin Lambert wanted to create a “homegrown” project.
“Kevin and I had a vision about it last year, where we wanted to make this festival completely local, and we wanted expat writers in the community, local actors, local directors,” she said.
“And we wanted to do this because we felt that there‘s a lot of talent within the community.”
A new aspect of this project was that the writers were invited for a workshop midway through the rehearsals, to see how the director and cast were developing the play.
“In the middle of the process we also had a workshop where the writers were invited to see part of the progress and give feedback and the actors, director and writers could communicate with each other and give each other their insights based on where they were at the time,” Schroeder said. “And that really helped create a well-rounded piece, which we have now.”
Both plays are in English with Korean subtitles.
Performances take place at the Yeollim Hall Theater on Saturday at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m., and again at the same times on May 27 and 28.
Tickets can be reserved via seoulplayers@gmail.com and are 15,000 won in advance or 20,000 won at the door.
By Paul Kerry (
paulkerry@heraldcorp.com)
