Jackpot – DAEBAK

 

 

Jackpot – DAEBAK

SEOUL PERFORMING ART COMPANY
plays

A comedy musical about two unlikely brothers
based on the Korean folk tale HUNGBU & NOLBU.

(Daebak (cor.) = jackpot = maximum profit; also the meaning: pumpkin)

THE KOREA HERALD, Friday, October 6, 2000

30 musical actors play, sing and dance a modernized dramatization
of the traditional Korean PANSORI mono opera "Hungbu - Ga"

A fusion of traditional Korean forms of play and
Western European circus clown theater.

A fusion of traditional Korean song and music forms and hip hop.

Premiere: Oktober 2000, Dong-Sun Art Center, Seoul, Korea
 

Concept, Staging Dietmar Lenz   
Text Won-Ki Hong, Dietmar Lenz
Choreografy Seung-Il Kim
Music Gui-Seob Choi
Costumes Yeon-Hi Hwang
Scenography Ho-Seong Sohn
   
Clown Yong-Tae Song
Circus Director Hi-Seong Yu
Hungbu Seong-Gi Kim
Hungbu´s wife Yeong-Sook Shin
Nolbu Jeol-Yeong Im
Nolbu´s wife Jae-Hi Yang
   
Ensemble Seoul Performing Art Company

 

The way up and down is one and the same.
Heraklit

"Go to the circus! The circus is a huge circle. Detach yourself from your rectangles, from your geometric windows, and travel to the land of moving circles. Break the boundaries, grow, strive for freedom - it's so human! The round is liberation. There is neither up nor down, neither beginning nor end. Go to the circus!” 
Fernand Léger

Hungbu and Nolbu, the younger and the older brother, these are the two sides of a double nature:
the clownesque-miracle-working element and the diabolically-destructive element: one is the brother of the other.
Hungbu, poor, with his wife and child, is the clown. He is the master of stumbling and of emptiness,
whose only support is lack of stability. His life is constantly being on the move on the edge of nothingness.
Again and again he playfully steps out of himself, even if the goal is unknown to him.
This makes him a fighter against windmills in a world that knows only one goal: money.

Nolbu, big landowner: behind his greed for more he hides his fear of nothing.
He confuses the outside with the inside. He never manages to listen to the other, to give him his ear, his senses,
his heart. He is afraid of that and that makes his actions destructive.
How often we don't not know what life means! We sit and count money.

Money makes black and white,
makes poor rich,
makes ugly beautiful,
makes the thief a minister.
We wrap ourselves in the shroud of money.

Shakespeare TIMON VON ATHEN

 

Szenario:

01 Intro
02 Circusdirector : speech to the audience
03 Nolbu and his masks
04 Evil deeds
05 On top of the world
06 Hungbu and the cow
07 Hungbu in the rain
08 Nolbu kicks out Hungbu
09 Hungbu meets his wife
10 The children are coming
11 Nolbu's wife and his servant
12 Way of the Homeless
13 Dreams in Hungbu's house
14 Officers in Hungbu's house
15 Hungbu begs from Nolbu
16 Hungbu's Wrath
17 Hungbu's Starry Night
18 Swallow Dream
19 Sirururung: sawing the gourd
20 Film Festival: the Jack Pott
21 The Rumor
22 The Surgery
23 Hunting for swallows
24 Hungbu the film director
25 007
26 Nolbu's pumpkins
27 Beggars
28 Nolbu's song about money
29 Three gisaengs
30 Gravediggers
31 The child and the ox
32 Hungbu's song
33 Hungbu meets Nolbu
34 Yin + Yang

 

Thanks to the management of the SEOUL PERFORMING ART COMPANY
for the invitation to this production:
a wonderful chance to combine European acting and clown art
with Korean theater and song traditions.

Thanks to the actresses, the actors and the whole team for the intensive and creative cooperation.
Thanks also to Ms. Park Yun-Cho who was so open-hearted to actively support us
with her unique skills and knowledge (PANSORI singing).

Dietmar Lenz, in the year of the dragon, Seoul October 2000