Arirang

We need brave and honest clowns.

“We need brave and honest clowns — artists who portray the anguish of their times, fighters who resist injustice, prophets who dream of a hopeful future. We need clowns who can be all of these at once.”

Kim Bul-chul, a wandering clown, is staging his adaptation of Arirang, the silent film made by Na Woon-gyu during the Japanese occupation, when he loses his co-star in a traffic accident and tries to fill the time alone with banter and song.

Park Dal-jae, an aspiring actor in the audience, volunteers to take the part, and the two begin rehearsing in front of the spectators. Park questions his role and the play itself, and in answering, Kim reveals why he chose Arirang and what he believes as an actor.

As Park sees how the hero and his father are ruined and driven to death under colonial rule, he recognises his own father’s story and is gradually drawn into the play. Kim, too, carries a painful family history born of colonial oppression and national division, and shows how a clown with a sorrowful past can overcome that grief and transform it into art.

When the final rehearsal ends, Park at last understands Kim’s work and artistic world, and feels a deep human warmth and comradeship.

Arirang’s founding production was a two-actor show weaving together pansori, folk song, sinpa melodrama, popular song, medicine-show patter and one-man comedy. It drew attention for performers and crew — alumni of the Seoul National University College of Education drama club — who had trained in pansori, folk song and dance for some ten years and performed at a professional level. First staged in Incheon before its Seoul run, it won an enthusiastic response, with audiences singing and dancing along.