“Without experience, the actor cannot express his or her depth of art,” asserted Kim Hae-ryen (’66, English Language and Literature), who is currently the General Artistic Director for Sejong Center, a Seoul Metropolitan Theatre company. It was from her colorful and atypical experiences in Korea and overseas in the field of theater that she was able to draw out this statement. She has brought about noticeable changes in Korean theaters and plans to vitalize the Korean culture through them.
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| ▲ Kim Hae-ryen, General Artistic Director for Sejong Center, during the interview.Photographed by Lee Dawoon. | ||
Kim enrolled in Korea University (KU) in the year of 1966, and in her first year of college she decided to join the KU Theater Club (KUTC), which, at that time, held two plays every year, and she was selected to play the role of the main character. She also took English and American drama classes, which helped her come across an important fact about theater: since theater is a reflection of the society of the time, it is necessary for an actor or actress to be aware of what is going on around him or her. She realized, moreover, that the ultimate goal of theater is to educate its audience.
As time passed, she noticed there were limits to an actress who has not undergone the process of marriage, so she chose to get married at a very early age. “Without experience, the actor cannot express his depth of art,” revealed Kim. “I needed to get a grasp of what love between a man and a woman was like.” In a way, her marriage was a prerequisite for becoming a great actress, one of the many steps which led to her goal. She further promised herself that she would go back to studying theater as soon as her son became old enough to attend primary school.
After sending her son to elementary school, she enrolled in a master’s degree program in Theater and Film studies at Chung Ang University (CAU). When asked about her choice of school, she replied, “There were no other schools back then that had that kind of program, so I just decided to join CAU’s program.” Once she received her master’s degree at CAU, she then moved to New York to join New York University’s (NYU) Steinhardt Educational Theater’s master’s and doctorate degree programs.
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| ▲ View of the inside of Seoul Metropolitan Theatre. Provided by sorishop.com. | ||
Facing and Overcoming Struggles
In the midst of all of her pursuits to the deeper world of theater and drama, the biggest problem she ran into was identity crisis. During her college years, which were the 1960s, industrialization had just started taking place in Korea, and many women did not bother to advance further into their fields of study but instead chose to lead happy lives by becoming wives.
She wanted to stand strong against the temptation of resorting to the norm, but she had to compromise some of her youth in order to become a better actress. She had remained as a housewife until 1978, and in this period she pondered on what she would like to become. Theater and drama were all very enticing, but before jumping the gun, she needed to know whether or not she herself truly yearned for the life of an actress.
After the search for her identity had ended, she began to squeeze every leftover time she had and to persevere to reach her goal. She always carried a dictionary with her so that she would not forget any English words and never slacked off in her drama reading. “I aspired for my dream. I endeavored every single moment I had,” she commented. “I could see the barriers of any type collapsing in front of me.”
Reminiscing about a Petal of Memory
Leading a good life of an actress, she had some memorable moments in her acting career. “It was 1987, New York. Through Educational Theater for Asian Teenagers (ETAT), which I established, I decided to hold a drama contest for Korean teenagers of nearby community.” She initially only expected fewer than 50 people, but much to her surprise, over a 1000 contestants showed up for the event. “I was actually shocked. I really did not anticipate this big of a participation,” she added.
For the contest, she had the contestants act out the plays, which they themselves created, for 30 minutes and had the act in Korean if possible.“Every one of them enjoyed themselves, let alone that each of them was talented. That was why it was so hard to sort out people for the preliminaries.” What she found astonishing was that the contest had the power to open up a channel through which the students and parents could communicate, which previously could not be done because of language barriers.
Theater Industry in Her Eyes and Her Future Plans
She tells that many new writers and actors are born every day; unfortunately, she cannot seem to find any classic or authentic works from them, like those of Shakespeare. “Korea urgently needs much more poetic drama than right now. In other words, we need more people like Kim Kyung-ju, who always surprises his audience with the authenticity of his work.”
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| ▲ Poster of the most recent play showing in Sejong Center. Provided vop.co.kr. | ||
To this dire situation of drama in Korea, she plans to focus on propagating the unique culture Korea has to offer through theatrics. One part of Korean culture she plans on creating a play about is Margo the Great, which is a myth of a grandmother who created Earth. “Just like how there are plays about Greek mythology, I want to create a play about Korean mythology, Margo the Great in this case.”
She further reveals her dislike of the tendency of bringing down one’s own cultural mythology. “It is a bad habit that we picked up during the colonial times. We must get rid of it and stress the importance in our own culture.” On spreading Korean culture, she commented that, “We always say K-Pop is spreading the Korean Culture, but I do not think that will do. Instead, we should have plays about our mythology and history. That way, we can let the world know of our unique, authentic country.”
It is great to see a KU student with a profound interest in drama transform into a woman of theater.
Lim Jae Heun
jaehlim95@korea.ac.kr