Review Fix Exclusive Midtown International Theatre Festival Coverage: Inside ‘My Friends is a Shoe Burglar’

Review Fix chats with Playwright Ye-seong Hon, who discusses “My Friends is a Shoe Burglar,” which is set for a run at this year’s Midtown International Theatre Festival.

For more on this production, click here.


Review Fix: What was the inspiration for this project?

Ye-seong Hon: I was a member of a Korean traditional art club in my college years. I had activities such as Korean masked dance and percussion. Two years before my graduation, our club tried to modernize the Korean traditional art and produced a street theatre. That led me to theatre life. Due to my college year activities, I became interested in Korean myths and tales. While I researched Korean myths and tales, I found this ghost like character, Anggwaengyi. It comes from the underworld to real world only on the last night of the year. It wanders around a town that night and tries on all the shoes in the town. When the ghost finds well-fitting shoes, it takes them to the underworld. Then, the person whose shoes were stolen will be sick or dead. That’s what the fairy tale tells. To avoid the bad luck, there’s an old Korean traditional custom: hiding shoes on the last night of the year. This ghost has a very odd character which is led another old Korean traditional custom: hanging a sieve on the fence of their houses to prevent the ghost taking shoes. The reason why is the ghost likes to count small holes because it thinks it is smart but it can’t even count numbers more than four. When the ghost sees the sieve, it immediately starts counting the small holes on the sieve and keeps forgetting the number he’s been counting until the new year’s first sun rises. And then it has to return to the underworld without a pair of shoes. Though the fairy tale is kind of scary story, I found a feeling of intimacy and warmness from its stupidity. Especially origin of Anggwaengyi whose former life was exactly like Scrooge in Christmas Carol becomes Anggwaengyi ghost who is always starving and in need of clothes. In my research on this fairy tale what happened with its life and its characteristic, I’ve been feeling an archetype of Korean mind wishing a life pursuing mutual well-being with others. I’d like to stage the idea and let the global audience see it.

Review Fix: What’s your creative process like?

Ye-seong Hon: Once I find an interesting story, immediately I get the idea that I want to stage the story. When I get that kind of idea, I’m not a person who easily gives up. As I am, on the other hand, not a person who believes one person alone can create a theatre show either. I go along with several colleagues from initial creation, including actors rather than creating it by myself. So incessantly looking for the other artists is all about my creation process. To name “My Friend is a Shoe Burglar” example, I’ve been having the idea to stage the fairy tale of Anggwaengyi for a long time since I encountered the fairy tale. When I decided to stage it, I wrote the synopsis and called Ye-seong Hong, the playwright, to have her write the script. And then, since it is my first musical show, I hired an experienced musical actor and have him train my other actors as a musical director. I worked on the initial script with the musical team. When we get good ideas for scenes and lyrics I have Ye-seong rewrite the script. We repeated this creation sequence. And I called Kyoung sook Choi, a composer, to have her compose songs for our show. I did a similar sequence with songs. That is how my creative process goes.


Review Fix: What makes this different or special?

Ye-seong Hon: I believe a good theatre show is that all participants say, “Hey, this is the show I made all!” Because of that, our shows become easily reflecting the mood of circumstances. As we perform our show more and more, sometimes, a different version of the show gets created. This show will develop as an organism ongoingly.


Review Fix: What did you learn about yourself through this process?

Ye-seong Hon: If a person creates a theatre show alone dealing with all the aspects of the show as he encounters, the unity will be reinforced. However, I believe the diversity is the most beautiful virtue in theatre art. I’ve learned it from this process that an organically growing show must be a show in which every little idea of participants can be shining within the show.

Review Fix: How does it feel to be a part of something like this?

Ye-seong Hon: I feel like I’m sitting in the Olympus Roundtable. I always create a new world together with other artists. The relationship I create with other artists is not always going well. I’m having that kind of difficulties even at this moment. However, I believe our creative process should be always together with many other artists.

Review Fix: What are your ultimate goals for this production and for the future?

Ye-seong Hon: From the moment I encountered the material story of the production, I dreamed of making it as an animation or movie piece. Like I said above, I don’t have a characteristic easily giving up. I don’t have money to achieve this dream and this is not an easy thing to do. However, I want to look for people or organizations that have an interest in achieving the dream together with me. In pursuit of my dream, participating in MITF is one of my effort to make my dream comes true.


Review Fix: What do you think your audiences will enjoy the most?

Ye-seong Hon: As time traveling is often used in many theatre shows and films, it might be an interesting element for our audience. A ghost stealing a shoe, Korean traditional customs hiding shoe, and hanging a sieve to cheat the ghost will be interesting elements. The melodies of songs composed by Kyoung sook Choi are beautiful and have something to hold audience’s attention. More than anything, our show has lots of moments of slapstick comedy and makes our audience laugh all the time. Finally, the idea of a lonely child finding one’s happiness will warm our audience like in “Little Lord Fauntleroy” or “A Little Princess”.


Review Fix: What’s next?

Ye-seong Hon: For 2016 MITF, this summer we will perform in Korean (though we would try to find a way to give our audience translation service). However, I want to reproduce it in English later on. And we have another musical piece titled “The Promise.” It is a love story of a young couple who save a chick of a great spotted woodpecker. It is also a fantasy story of the spirit of the bird saved by the couple, which secretly helps the couple’s son to repay the favor. It is also a musical dealing environmental problems of industrialized city mountains. I’d like to introduce this musical to US audience as well.