Ivo van Hove’s “The Fountain” will be performed in Seoul from March 31 to April 2, marking the second time that the theater director will visit Korea to stage his production.

The Fountainhead, a stage adaptation of a 1943 novel by Ayn Rand of the same name, was first unveiled in 2014 and has received mostly positive reviews.

The four-hour show’s protagonist is a young architect Howard Roark who refuses to compromise his artistic and personal vision for worldly success. The character’s interaction with other characters -- mainly heroine Dominique Francon whose philosophy conflicts with Roark, conformist architect Peter Keating, newspaper mogul Gail Wynand and antagonist Ellsworth Toohey -- adds depth to the plot depicting his struggles.

“Rand’s tub-thumping anticollectivism is nuanced in (rather long) cattle-auctioneer duelling speeches by Roark and the cartoon-baddy socialist Ellsworth Toohey. Van Hove succeeds in levitating all these contradictory ideals and themes, throwing moral responsibility back where it belongs: with the audience,” the Guardian said on the piece’s review, adding that it offers “fresh and complex rereading of the Ayn Rand novel.”

Van Hove, best known as the artistic director of Toneelgroep Amsterdam, has also gained recognition for his Off-Broadway avant-garde experimental theater productions.

The play by the Tony Award-winning director Belgium, produced by the Toneelgroep Amsterdam, will be performed at LG Art Center located in Yeoksam-dong, southern Seoul.

The opening hours for the plays are 7 p.m. on Friday, and 3 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, and the tickets range from 40,000 won to 80,000 won.


By Yoon Min-sik
(minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com)