The Korea Times
31 août 2004 · Lee Yong-sung
French Director to Use Different Approaches for Moliere's Play
The National Drama Company of Korea will put Moliere's satiric play, "Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (The Would-be Gentleman)," on the National Theater of Korea's Daloreum Theater stage under the direction of elite French director Éric Vigner from Sept. 11 through Sept. 24.
Planned as the 18th stage of the troupe's six-year-old "World's Classic Series," the original play mocks the tension amongst the classes through Monsieur Jourdain, a rich son of a cloth merchant who is desperate to reach the upper sector of the class pyramid, only to be ridiculed at the end.
With the story similar to the 18th century satiric Korean novel "Yangbanjon," (A Story of Yangban — "yangban" refers to aristocrats of Choson Kingdom) written by the renowned scholar and writer Park Ji-won, Vigner will focus more on how young Jourdain opens his eyes to art as the result of his fruitless efforts towards the social hierarchical repositioning.
"Making fun of contemporary hierarchical order is not what the original play is all about," Vigner, 43-year-old director of the Dramatic Center in Lorient, France, said during last week's press meeting. "Through Jourdain, the play suggests a new vision for the contemporary world. It's the true meaning of the play."
Named director of the center at the age of 35 in 1995 as the youngest person to have held the position, Vigner came to join the drama company's work at the recommendation of the French Artistic Action Association (AFAA). To show the new interpretation of the play to local theater fans, he even canceled his prescheduled opera directing.
"I've found Korean actors to be hardworking and highly flexible. The language barrier means nothing to me because I know how everything is going on the stage through sound," Vigner said. During the play, classical Baroque music repertoires rearranged for traditional Korean instruments will be used. After the play fmishes its run, it will move to France in October, as it was invited to be shows as part of Lorient Theater's official fall program...
Lee Sang-jik, whose expressive acting abilities grabbed Vigner's attention from their first encounter on the stage, will play Jourdain, with other main actors of the troupe including Cho Eun-kyung (Madam Jourdain) and Lee Eun-hee (Jourdain's daughter).