Table Reading for ‘Death and The Maiden’
Date and Time: 16:00~18:00, September 17th, 2018
Place: KAKAO Imagination Center on 10th Floor at the Contents Korea Lab
Director: Jung-Hwa Choo
Cast: Ji-Hui Kim, Seo-Yoon Yang, Sun-Keun Lee
The last table reading of the first day for ‘GLOCAL MUSICAL LIVE’ season 3 was ‘Death and The Maiden’, which showed a series of incidents on the story that a nameless composer Franz who suffered from his inferiority complex got the Beethoven’s will from a man who called himself as a student of Beethoven. Under the lead of director Choo, casting members Ji-Hui Kim, Seo-Yoon Yang and Sun-Keun Lee participated in the field to bring life into the scenario.
As can be inferred on the same title as ‘Death and The Maiden>, the music of Shubert, main character Franz is Shubert himself. Previous works which handled Shubert expressed him as the one who was beyond evaluation and recognition often, however the creators of musical hoped to draw Shubert just as a human to face his desire with suffer instead of deified Shubert due to the fact that the record written by Shubert felt like ‘he wanted to be credited as Beethoven’. About this reinterpretation of Shubert, the actress Seo-Yoon Yang evaluated that the characters were somewhat attractive, and director Choo said, “The idea that ‘Shubert wanted to be Beethoven’ was so fresh.”
The main plot of ‘Death and The Maiden’ was focused on the fact that Franz faced and challenged his inner desire according to the intention of creation, so he came over it and sublimated onto his own music. But the actor Ji-Hui Kim said, “There are not only lots of musicals which spread out the face of ‘Inner desire’, but also dealing with artist’s life with the same style as ‘Death and The Maiden’.” Byoung-Won Kang, CEO of the LIVE also said, “This work just reminds me of ‘MUNK’ at the season 2 in various ways as well.” And he pointed out the similarity of conflict, the style to treat artists, and method to use illusions. For this reason, discussion went on this work ‘Death and The Maiden’ focusing on how to differ from other similar works.
Actor Ji-Hui Kim stated his opinion about the music and said, “Most music is played by piano, so I feel each melody is similar. I hope this could be better if various music and tempo were used.” Director Choo suggested bringing main music theme from Beethoven by focusing on the fact that Beethoven even came out in front of the scenario more than Shubert. CEO Kang also suggested using real music of Beethoven and Shubert.
The plan to enforce the well-organized passage with Franz on the scenario was discussed first. CEO Kang stated his opinion that it would be better the side dot is positioned on Shubert by telling that period on the big picture with appearing real artists who was something to do with him, when considering that the creators wish to make this ‘Death and The Maiden’ into the play for 6 to 7 characters. And he added, “The explanation about the reason why Shubert wanted to be like Beethoven on the first part is necessary. Then the story will be fully made which tells an artist who wanted to make his own world very well” In addition, Soo-Young Kim, the professor at DONG-KOOK University said, “I also feel this looks similar to other works just because there is not so many incidents in it.” And she hope it would make a differentiation through the way to solve each incident.