With her lips cracking and her nose bleeding, actor Park Ha-sun says she is learning — intensely, almost microscopically — how to inhabit the stage.
“I’m being picked apart at a nano level. Voice, gait, breathing, even where I place my gaze — all of it," said Park, speaking at a press event in Seoul on Wednesday.
It is a brutal rehearsal process, befitting the tragic heroine she is preparing to play.
Park has been cast in the lead role of “Hongdo,” a revival mounted by theater company Playfactory Mabangjin to mark its 20th anniversary. The production returns to the stage a decade after its premiere.
Based on the 1930s melodrama “Fooled by Love, Hurt by Money,” the play belongs to the Korean tradition of shinpa — a genre characterized by heightened emotion, suffering and narratives engineered to draw tears.
The story follows Hongdo, who becomes a courtesan to support her brother’s education and finds true love with a man from an elite family, only to face rejection from his family.
Returning to the stage after last year’s “Our Little Sister,” Park said she is facing a new challenge: performing without a microphone. Projecting her voice has emerged as more challenging than expected.
“I developed inflammation in my vocal cords and had to get injections,” she said. “Other actors told me that once you go through this period, your voice opens up. And it’s true. After getting past it, my voice has improved.”
She added, “I’m excited. I feel that if I get through this moment, I’ll come out stronger.”
Park shares the role in a triple cast with the veteran actor Ye Ji-won, who is returning to the role after the premiere, and Choi Ha-yoon, a member of Playfactory Mabangjin.
Ye said that returning to the role has presented new challenges.
“Hongdo is 18 in the play, and playing someone in her teens is incredibly difficult,” she said. “I’m working to strike a balance, not too young, but not seeming older either. It feels like starting over, with a completely different set of questions than I had 10 years ago.”
Director Ko Sun-woong said that in revisiting the work, he had focused on making it resonate with contemporary audiences. Elements that might now feel uncomfortable — including depictions of courtesans and certain lines of dialogue about women — were carefully reconsidered.
“Even with the same narrative, if it doesn’t reflect the present, it risks feeling dated. We are living in a time that is more sensitive to misogyny and verbal violence, so we examined those expressions closely.”
Revisiting the production, he added, has required a more exacting approach.
“When you restage a work, you become more sensitive — more self-critical,” he said. “It’s like mining for gemstones and polishing them. That’s how we’re refining this piece.”
“Hongdo” will run from April 10 to 26 at the CJ Towol Theater at the Seoul Arts Center, before embarking on a nationwide tour through cities including Gwangju, Daegu, Ansan, Pohang, Miryang, Busan and Anseong in May and June.
hwangdh@heraldcorp.com
