Table Reading for ‘DIAL’
Time and Date: 10:30~12:30, Sep. 17, 2018
Place: Kakao Partners Center at 10th Floor of the Contents Korea Lab
Director: Jung-Hwa Choo
Cast: Ji-Seung Cho, Han-Keun Park, Jae-Hyuk Chung, Ye-Seul Son, Dong-Ho Kwon, Soon-Mi Heo, Sa-Wool Kim, Jung-Sub Yoon
Ji-Hye Yoo, the writer of ‘DIAL’ on the 2018 GLOCAL Musical LIVE Season 3 told her background story for the creation, “This is a fiction about her mother’s story who had been an operator at the telephone company in 1960~1970.” Table Reading was proceeded by Jung-Hwa Choo, the director with the writer Ji-Hye Yoo and the matching composer for ‘DIAL’ Hyun-Sook Park. Even if the work is not dealing with that much far from the present times, people evaluate that this work is quite pretty much attractive due to the telephone operator as a sort of strange job and the homesickness of that era. On the other hand, there are too many stories on the work so that people can hardly understand what the writer wanted to say, and the connection between characters and incidents is not so improbable. Yoo said about this, “I know there are lots of jump cuts. The main story seems it’s not completed yet because the story spreads out around the main character Eu-Jin (the telephone operator).”
At first, director Choo pointed out some parts which she didn’t understand while reading. At the scene that the operator Eu-Jin helped the chief publisher, Jun-Tae the reporter, and In-Kwon from government’s tapping situation, Choo suggested “the work would be much effective only if readers and audiences can feel how the fearful society at that era was and how dangerous the characters tried”. Also in case of Nam-Il the repairman, she didn’t understand how he could get a sort of stable job in South Korea even if the scenario says that his father was a kind of VIP (general) in North Korea army. The cast members who joined this reading also pointed out the same matter that Nam-Il’s father was set up as a general in North Korea. Dal-Young Chung, the professor at DONG-KOOK University said, “A son of general in North Korea can hardly get a job in South Korea at that period. Even to work for some government such as a telephone company is quite impossible.” One of the actresses, Sa-Wool Kim also suggested them to show more realistic background circumstances and said, “I can hardly feel that it was such a horrible era. There is no such suppression or satisfaction even if Jun-Tae and In-Kwon conspired to make their own voices against government.”
Director Choo also said, “The situation that the telephone operators suddenly become famous stars with troika was a little unconvincing, and I don’t really understand how the character Eu-Jin could hang out with Nam-Il at the café until they broke the curfew in Korea, because I thought she was such a pure person.” Professor Chung with an experience of curfew in that period said, “I can hardly imagine hanging out at the middle of curfew hour. I was always got stressed by curfew hour, so this work doesn’t really show us the detail circumstances about that era.” Director Choo advised, “There would be such a great scene only if the Nam-Il is so mysterious and attractive with having a privilege to walk around any street at the middle of curfew hour.” Han-Keun Park, the actor for Nam-Il also said, “I can hardly see how Nam-Il wants to keep his status. He couldn’t have helped Eu-Jin if he got a situation that he has a father who is a general in North Korea. Now Nam-Il seems ambivalent, so it is necessary to identify his character more clearly.
The actress Ye-Seul Son said, “The work has a little heavy subject, however it was somewhat interesting that the operator sisters are cute and refreshable as well as a DJ at the café showed up.” Jung-Sub Yoon, the actor also said, “This work is quite interesting due to its analogue emotion like .” But Yoon added he just didn’t know where the center of gravity is, where to concentrate whether the analogue emotion or highlighting the dark era. Hyun-Sook Park, the composer added, “This work is attractive with the formation to deal with both analogue and the dark era, but it’s a little uncomfortable that the operator sisters become stars. So it would better show ordinary person as an assistant.”
Director Choo showed her expectation and said, “Mother pig in Hawaii or Gye (a kind of traditional private fund popular among Koreans) to show the phases of the times should be deleted. I saw many point-outs so far, but this work is covered with good materials such as tapping from government, dark society and telephone operator. So this work will be much better when these are tied together.”