Yoduk Story, a musical depicting life in a North Korean consentration camp, premiered in Washington on Oct. 5th. In an article on Oct. 6th, The Washington Post describes it as an “energetically performed musical” comparing it to “Jesus Christ Superstar” and “Les Misérables” and “a large-scale Passion play/moral plea.” Yoduk Story will be set up in Los Angeles on OCt 19-22.  The Rafto Human Rights House has contributed to the production of the musical, and is working on a documentary about the project. (08-OCT-06)

Photo: Hans Jørgen Brun, Bergen

Read the review:

Singing in the Reign of Terror
By Nelson Pressley
Special to The Washington Post
Friday, October 6, 2006; Page C04


It´s as difficult to get your mind around the Korean musical “Yoduk Story,” set in an all-too-real political prison in Yoduk, North Korea, as it would be to grasp a Broadway spectacular about the abuses at Abu Ghraib. Can you sing and dance about torture?

Writer-director Jung Sung-San, himself once imprisoned in North Korea, believes you can — indeed, believes it so fervently that he took out a $20,000 loan on his kidney to get this show up and running. The result, which has had success in South Korea (Jung´s kidneys are safe), wraps up a brief run tonight at the Music Center at Strathmore.
  
This energetically performed musical, sung and  acted in Korean with English surtitles, will feel familiar to audiences who have seen “Jesus Christ Superstar” and “Les Misérables.” It´s a large-scale Passion play/moral plea amped up with a thunderous score (music by Kyung Chan Cha, lyrics by Hae Jung Yoo). And yes, it has a savior figure, plus a huge cross dominating the back of the stage, and its own Javert, the rabidly prosecutorial villain of “Les Miz.”

The plot, based on real incidents, focuses on the story of Kang Ryun-Hwa, a famous actress whose father is unjustly accused of spying. In a heartbeat, Ryun-Hwa goes from proudly singing, “I will be the daughter of the government” to terrified shrieks as she and her family are whisked at gunpoint into Yoduk.

The prison is depicted as a cesspool of writhing bodies and lashing guards, overseen by officials quick to brandish weapons not only at the captives, but at each other. (The place is rife with rivalries and suspicions.) Interest quickly zeroes in on Myung-Soo Lee, the Javert-like character who is zealous in his execution of North Korean-style justice. But as he drunkenly bellows of how coldblooded he has become, you sense he just might be open to a thaw.

Complications: Ryun-Hwa´s pregnancy, the prison officials´ continual scheming brutality, the fate of two charismatic crazies, one of them a longhair rock singer/Christ figure. Christianity becomes a major element of the show, not only in that centrally stationed cross but in repeated invocations of the Lord´s Prayer and in musical references to “Amazing Grace.”

The score´s dominant tool, however, is the power ballad — escalating melodies with unambiguous titles such as “Cold-Blooded” and “Hellish Prison Yoduk,” belted with gusto by the large cast. You get the picture, and the sound, pretty quickly.

If the musical rapidly loses it mystery, the prison itself does not. It´s hard to shake an awareness of the gap between the inevitably stylized “Yoduk Story,” with its polished performers and beautiful lighting, and what must be the harshness of actual Yoduk. At Wednesday´s well-attended show, though, reality checks were everywhere, including unorthodox theatrical sponsorship by major human-rights organizations and ubiquitous TV cameras. (The musical provides a robust cultural tie-in for Asian media who are monitoring what a show spokesman called the region´s ongoing “security situation,” including North Korea´s announcement this week that a nuclear test is imminent.)

At the curtain call, Jung briefly addressed the audience in Korean and suggested that the show was “not a performance,” but a manifestation of the suffering of North Koreans stuck in Yoduk and similar facilities. Then choreographer Yung Soon Kim, who survived eight years at Yoduk, spoke about the family members she has lost to North Korean concentration camps. That brought it home.

Yoduk Story is written and directed by Jung Sung-San.