Sorikkun (pansori vocalist) Lee Jaram, who fused the drama of German playwright Berthold Brecht with the Korean musical art of pansori to present Sacheonga and Eokcheokga, and who superbly combined pansori and theater. While thinking deeply about a sustainable pansori stage, found herself asking "What is pansori?" and then met director Park Ji-hye, who’d been grappling about similar things with the question, "What is theater?" The Stranger’s Song, which came about as the two artists each attempted to find an answer to their questions, has been attracting the attention of the critics for offering a new direction for the future of contemporary pansori. I met with Pansori Project ZA art director and sorikkun Lee Jaram and director Park Ji-hye to chat about their work.

In Search of a New Method of Communication Possible Through Pansori

Q. Yu Hyeon-jin: How long has it been since you two last saw each other? And what have been doing since then?

Park Ji-hye : It seems like it’s been a very long time, but it’s actually only been a month since we last worked together to finish the piece. In July we went to Okinawa, and in August we went to the Miryang Summer Performing Arts Festival with our piece The Stranger’s Song. After that, I practiced with the Yangson Project, which I’m a member of, for four weeks, and we performed One Person at the BeSeTo Theatre Festival.

Lee Jaram : It seems like it’s been a really long time, but before the Miryang Summer Performing Arts Festival in August we had been preparing for our performance of The Stranger’s Song at the Seoul Arts Center and had only been together since May. Before that, we were together for the Chumul and Sarin performance at the Pansori Shorts event. Still, it feels like it’s been a long time [laughs]. 

Q. Do you have any particular sentiments or resolutions following the selection of The Stranger’s Song for PAMS Choice?

Park : I’m happy about the PAMS Choice selection. To be honest, when I first thought about performing on stage for the Performing Arts Market Seoul, my first instinct was to consider what others might think when viewing our piece. But then I came to the conclusion that when it comes to performances, whatever the stage, it’s all fundamentally the same. At the end of the day, taking the time to consider what this piece was originally about and why we wanted to tell this story was the best way to approach people who have lived in different cultures. It eventually became less important for me to think about what we were going to show. Instead, I was only thinking about how it would be fun to organize the flow of the story within us and, afterward, meet with people of other cultures and share it with them.

Lee : For me it’s my third PAMS Choice stage. I’ve been introduced at the Performing Arts Market Seoul with Sacheonga (Selection for 2009) and Eokcheokga (Selection for 2012), and I think at the time it was about showing people, "This is pansori." The Stranger’s Song, which we’ll be showcasing at this year’s PAMS Choice, is the event’s first pansori drama in three years, following Eokcheokga. Because it’s a piece that follows a long period of consideration regarding where I should be heading as a sorikkun—on what kind of stage, and in what sort of stance—I’m curious, although a bit scared, about how those who’ve seen my previous pieces might view it. I’m also extremely curious about how what we’re trying to say through this piece will be received in other cultures, and in what areas we’ll be able to establish common ground. When I think about pieces like Sacheonga or Eokcheokga, which many people judge to be successful pieces, I think such points of contact were extremely important. The sorikkun, Lee Jaram, who performs in The Stranger’s Song isn’t there to show off, as she may have been in previous pieces; she is rather closer to being someone telling a story. Because of this, I’m all the more hopeful that the story I’m trying to tell is successfully conveyed. 

Q. Park Ji-hye, is this your first time getting involved with the Performing Arts Market Seoul? Do you have any expectations for the PAMS Choice showcase, and if so, what are they?

Park : Yes, it’s my first time. Having presented other pieces in Japan and China, I can say that having my work presented to a variety of audiences increases the number of layers the piece has. Even in Korea, there have been points where an audience has helped me experienced a sense of completion and attainment when I’d least expected it. The stage at Performing Arts Market Seoul can be a kind of junction where a variety of international audiences come together, and I’m excited for the opportunity to meet new audiences and add depth to the performances I direct.

Q. Earlier this year, you performed The Stranger’s Song at the Kijimuna Festa in Okinawa, Japan. How was its reception there?

Park : Very enthusiastic. Previously, we had performed at the Bird Theatre Tottori with Dogs are Savage Beasts, a piece created with the Yangson Project and based on a short story from Japanese novelist Osamu Dazai. At the time I thought that Japanese audiences were very dignified and polite, and also very careful about sowing any sort of open reaction. I guess we would call it an extreme unwillingness to inconvenience others? But this time around in Okinawa the audiences showed such passion in their reactions that I was actually surprised. According to the local staff there, it’s uncommon for audiences to laugh during a performance and to be so active while viewing a piece. I think [their response] had to do with the inherent characteristics of pansori as well: The audiences, for their part, opened up more and were more emotionally available. There were more elders than children in the audience, and both their enjoyment and their tears left a great impression on me. Right before the performance of The Stranger’s Song, Jaram performed the traditional pansori Simcheongga on the monorail, and even then I sensed that the audiences were overwhelmed at the situation unfolding in front of them. Even for me, participating in that moment as an audience member, I was captivated by that world, and I believe that for the Japanese audiences too, it’s very interesting and entertaining to see the traditions of another country. 

Lee : I also feel like the response was very enthusiastic, and I was all the more curious about what the reception would be like in Japan because I’d never been to Japan with Sacheonga and Eokcheokga. Moreover, because it was the first overseas performance of The Stranger’s Song, I wondered how audiences would receive my original pansori creation, whether they would join me, and also, when the piece was being communicated in another language, whether what we were trying to say would be successfully conveyed. But the audiences were unexpectedly very much in sync with Korean audiences, laughing at similar times and audibly voicing their response. It was an interesting experience. Perhaps it was because the space was so small, but I felt that the Japanese audience that had come in with such politeness and dignity and then watched us with wide-open hearts, passionately, and zealously. I think that’s why the team was able to happily wrap up the performance.

Q. Was there any point when you realized something new?

Park : The subtitles were difficult. There’s a particularly rhythm for each scene, but we also had to allow enough time for the audience to read the subtitles.

Lee : I agree. That’s why, for this performance in Japan, we had do put in some additional work to find suitable sections to read the subtitles and adjust the performance so that the sorikkun could wait for the subtitles to be read, and do so in a way that didn’t interrupt the rhythm of that particular scene.

Park : I realized that if we take our pieces abroad, we would absolutely need to have separate rehearsals to meticulously coordinate the scenes and the subtitles that are read with them. I felt that different regional audiences connected with different parts of the performance—something that I hadn’t realized in Korea. It was great in the sense that I learned something new, but it was also difficult.

The Convergence of Theater, Novels and Pansori

Q. Lee Jaram performed previous pieces Sacheonga, and Eokcheokga successfully overseas with the help of PAMS Choice. If there were any differences in the process of preparation between your previous projects and the most recent piece, what were they?

Lee : First, compared to my previous works, this piece will be performed on a smaller scale. Unlike Sacheonga or Eokcheokga, for which I was invited to perform at large theaters, The Stranger’s Song was created to go well with studio or box theaters, so the scale itself is different. As someone who performs, because I feel the very physical pressure of a lack of time, I sometimes seek out shorter pieces. Traditional pansori performances are long, and even in the case of Sacheonga or Eokcheokga, I have to perform alone for two and a half hours. Because of this, I’ve thought about creating a short pansori for a while—something a little over an hour. And with this thought in mind, I found out about contemporary Korean writer Ju Yo-seop and with his short stories Chumul (An Ugly Object) and Sarin (Murder) and began the small Pansori Shorts project with director Park Ji-hye. The whole thing has been novel and diverting. Director Park also told me about the similarities between pansori and South American magical realism, and at that time, while looking for South American literature, I stumbled upon Gabriel Garcia Márquez’s short story Bon Voyage, Mr. President.

Q. The pairing of pansori and Brecht has captured the attention of critics both at home and overseas as an extraordinary combination and an excellent decision. Despite this success, it must not have been an easy decision to move forward with combining pansori and Marquez. What made you decide on this particular piece?

Lee : This is referenced in the first part of The Stranger’s Song, but truly, my decision to recreate Bon Voyage, Mr. President as a pansori was made rather instinctively after I read it and then took a nap. Once I started the project, however, it wasn’t easy at all. There were points where one simply couldn’t reconcile the concept of the novel with the concept of the pansori, and it took a lot of time and effort before I could really connect with the English-language translation of the text. It also look a long time for me to decide how much the sorikkun should be allowed to interfere with the characters and incidents. Yes, it was scarcely an easy task. Toward the end of the work, upon discovering that one of the characters, Lázara, resembled my older sister, Park Ji-hye and I got goosebumps. I thought of all of these discoveries as presents from my instinct—which has chosen this piece—to myself. And they’re also something that I don’t want to lose in the future as I perform it.

Park : If I get the feeling that I have something to learn from a piece, then I am the type to really cling to it. Before all else, I just cling to it and attempt to learn more about it. The virtues, the identity—all of these are constant considerations, but the similarities I see between the characters in the story and the characters around me provide a certain kind of comfort to me, and to them. There will be more discoveries like this in the future. I want to continue making such discoveries.

Q. I’m aware that with pansori, a genre where a speaker narrates the unfolding situations and personalities in the story, language is extremely important. Your piece is one that translates the language of a novel—Márquez’s short story—into pansori. I’m wondering if there was any difficulty in doing that, or any particular aspects that required special attention.

Park : I believe that the worldview or philosophy of a writer shows in his or her original writing style, and that that has an influence on the pansori. Therefore according to what the original source material is, the sorikkun’s delivery changes, as does his or her speech and the manner of telling the story. Márquez’s Bon Voyage, Mr. President also includes Márquez’s style and philosophy, and I tried to ensure that it wasn’t damaged in the process of adapting it to pansori style. We expressed ourselves with our language, but I still believe that Márquez’s sense of language still lives within our piece. It’s not direct; it’s descriptive. And in that description is the original writer’s worldview, which makes the audience imagine things. . . . These aspects of the original story still live within our pansori piece.  

Lee : To translate a pansori script into English is as sensitive and difficult a task as writing a poem in English would be, so it’s not something we can do ourselves. But as much as we can, we are trying to convey what the writer would have wanted. We received a translation through the program that translates works for the PAMS stage. We’re looking it over meticulously, editing as needed, and preparing scrupulously.

Q. I have a question for Park Ji-hye. While working on The Stranger’s Song, what was the most difficult part, if there was one?

Park : Establishing how the story will be conveyed through the voice of the sorikkun, and how to establish the stance of the piece—these were the most difficult parts, and both are fundamental parts of original pansori creation. With traditional pansori, the sorikkun’s reason for singing a particular pansori is not as important. But with original pansori, because you’re creating a new pansori and singing it, I believe it’s different; when you’re trying to connect to modern audiences, there must be a clear point of view and a stance. I believe that establishing this point of view is a key part of working on an original pansori. It was difficult to decide how to approach the part where the story and the sorikkun coexist—at what distance and from what location.

Lee : The centrality of the sorikkun’s philosophy and how he or she approaches a story is what defines pansori as a genre and is one of its greatest strengths. And that’s why [determining these things] is such a difficult part of the creative process.

Q. Then what is pansori? Is The Stranger’s Song a still pansori?

Lee : Pansori is a performance art genre where a single narrator communicates a story to the audience using a variety of techniques. All techniques are important, but perhaps the one that the audience is most receptive to is the sorikkun’s sori, or sound. The sorikkun tells his or her story with a variety of rhythms and using his or her sounds, aided by a drummer (or several). The drummer simultaneously serves as a mediator between the audience and sorikkun, a character in the drama, and a technician that assists with the music. The sorikkun responds sensitively to everything that happens at every moment onstage, and is also the director of the performance, who plays with techniques and stories. The sorikkun is a performer that watches the audience, ensuring that the story is flowing well and delivering on his or her promise. The story is created differently depending on the attitude with which the sorikkun approaches his or her story. The sorikkun will also adapt to story’s the musical nuances and characters, and everything else that can be left up to chance. The attitude the sorikkun has toward the story is reflected directly in the performance, the most challenging aspect of my work is the point where the sorikkun meets the story. In this sense, the pansori of the Pansori Shorts project that feature Ju Yo-seop’s Chumul and Sarin and The Stranger’s Song are all pansori. And, of course, Sacheonga and Eokcheokga are also pansori.
At the premiere of The Stranger’s Song in Tongyeong, a French audience member who had seen Sacheonga and Eokcheokga without subtitling—and without knowing anything about the original source material—said that, regrettably, the performance, lacked the punch of our previous pieces. Both of the previous performances that the audience member had experienced drew from dramatic source material whose high level of tension was maximized on stage by the powerful pansori we wrote to match the original texts. Having remembered such projects from Lee Jaram, the audience member presumably expected a similar "punch" from this piece. But even when one considers the scale, The Stranger’s Song is not that sort of story; it is more stealthy in its assault. For me, it was around the time that I started to doubt whether pansori as a genre should necessarily be concerned with its level of impact that I came across the original source material for this very piece. When The Stranger’s Song was completed and premiered in Seoul—this piece, so different from the pieces that came before it—I was curious about how the audience would react. Fortunately, our message came across more smoothly and intimately than we anticipated, and so while preparing for the PAMS Choice performance, we were thinking, "Why shouldn’t we be able to create a similar experience with overseas audiences too?" and "Just because it’s another country, will it be so different?" Our final thought was, "Why shouldn’t be able to connect with the audience through our pansori, even without a powerful, single hit to surprise people?

The Story of Park Ji-hye and Lee Jaram, Lee Jaram and Park Ji-hye

Q. I want to discuss your other work. Park, you’re the director of the Yangson Project, which is currently the industry’s most talked-about company. What are some of the projects you’ve been working on recently, and what are some you’re preparing for next?

Park : The Yangson Project recently participated in the BeSeTo Theatre Festival with the Korean/Chinese/Japanese short One Person. I’m continuing to work with the Yangson Project with novels as the original source material, and while it wasn’t something that I planned from the start, the entire team is now very much into working with novels and short stories and is continuing to explore this world. Personally, I want to tie up all the loose ends with the short projects I did up until this point and then head in a different direction. Next year, or perhaps the year after that, I want to take all of the short stories that the Yangson Project worked on and present them all at once. We have about twenty pieces based on short stories by Hyeon Jin-geon, Kim Dong-in, Guy de Maupassant and Osamu Dazai, and in the process of presenting these pieces I want to take the opportunity to strengthen our work. I want to look back and review the grammar and vocabulary we discovered and experience once again the things discovered in that process. And then I really want to try something different.

Q. When you say you want to try something different, do you mean that you no longer wish to do adaptations of novels and short stories?

Park : What I meant was that I want to try something different in our approach to novels. Short stories and novels are a path that the Yangson Project already seems to be going along. But I want to try something with the rhythm and style of longer novels, or create something new within the same framework—I don’t know anything specifically yet, but I want to start approaching it in a new way. In the immediate future we have a drama called Fox Finder. The Yangson Project doesn’t have much experience with drama, save for Death and the Girl, so I’m looking forward to the fact that we’ll be presenting not only a drama but a new piece for the first time in a while. It seems as though we’re preparing to take a breath of fresh air. The performance will be shown at the Doosan Art Center from November 13 onward.  

Q. Does doing pansori projects with Lee Jaram influence your work?

Park : My work with pansori influences my work a lot. Because I’m personally interested in one-person plays and novels, I feel like my interests naturally carried me to a point of convergence with pansori. None of this has been set in stone, but you could say that I’m still trying to digest the form. The method in pansori of creating characters and expressing scenes aurally, the process by which the sorikkun character meets with the audience to talk—these represent a new kind of narrative drama that doesn’t exist in theater, and I’ve started to absorb these things. At the same time, I am observing to see how these things will be digested by others. But then again, The Stranger’s Song is different. If the previous projects in Pansori Shorts [Ju Yo-seop’s Chumul and Sarin] were about experiencing "Oh, so this is pansori," then this project was about leaving the domain of the typical pansori for something more philosophical, calm, and tranquil, and I got the feeling that I’d discovered yet another area within pansori. This is something I was not yet able to experience with the Yangson Project, and it’s something very quiet and fragile, this meeting of sorikkun and character. While I can’t express it fully in words, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I want to continue working with theater, with projects where I can peel back layers of myself, where I can continue going someplace.

Q. And will you, Lee Jaram, continue to create original pansori pieces?

Lee : Yes. I want to keep working until the moment that my techniques are on steady ground.

Q. Please tell me about your plans for the latter half of the year.

Lee : In the latter half of this year we’ll be touring the provinces with Eokcheokga. Currently, we’ve toured Cheonan and Guri, and in between trips in November I’m preparing for a pansori performance of the dongpyeonje-style pansori Heungboga, with Song Sun-seop—the government-designated holder of a, Intangible Cultural Asset. In my remaining time I read dramas and think about my next piece.

Q. Do you have any final thoughts for the readers of this article?

Lee : Whether drama or pansori, I hope you watch a lot of performances.

Park : I understand that it’s difficult taking time out of your life to watch a performance, but I think it would be great if you could just put in two hours to join us at a performance.