‘ARTHUR SAVIL’S CRIME’ 2nd mentoring
Date and Time: Nov. 5th 2018 (Mon) 10:30 ~ 13:00
Place: 3rd floor of HQ department in Korea National University of Arts
Mentor: Director Yoo-Jung Jang
The mentoring about the musical ‘Arthur Savil’s Crime’ was proceeded mainly with its scenario which was changed actually existing configurations and composition right after the 1st mentoring. 2nd mentoring was about entire treatment and completed scenario until the chapter 4. The big change on the 2nd mentoring scenario was that the musical has been changed into 4 characters play with Arthur Savil, Civil, Hervinkelkov, and Renaman. As for the contents, Arthur Savil was set up not as an unknown hollywood actor but as a star in silent movie. Arthur Savil, the silent movie star has been struggling with protecting the silent movie because he’s about to lose his job for sound movies. This was the reason to increase the bond of sympathy and fancy with Rena, the deaf fortune-teller. Arthur Savil at the sound movie era tries to recover the glory of silent movie again. Because that is the only reason for him to exist. Second prophecy ‘Expecting news will come soon’ is not a simple casting, but the changing situation for Savil to make his silent movie of his dreamed. Another big change focused on the question who is the person you love the most on the last prophecy ‘you will murder the person you love most.’ Therefore Savil was anxious to kill his fiance Civil then tried to kill Rena, and lastly the structure was changed for him getting to know the person whom he loved most.
Writer Youn-Mi Kim told her complaints about the situation which should be delivered only with characters’ scripts because the play was proceeded with 4 characters. So she considered to make Hervinkelkov as a narrator (speaker). Mentor Jang suggested another possibility by solving with directing way such as other characters’ acting with costumes or lights, shadow play, or puppet show except Arthur Savil. Jang advised that auditory type to help images might also be effective due to the changing period from silent to sound movie.
The death of his parents who dumped Savil out should be the motive to Arthur Savil to execute his murder. Writer questioned herself whether Arthur Savil would feel sad for his parents’ death even if they dumped him out, so that was why he came to kill the person he loved. So she said she is worried if Arthur might feel pitiful when his parents wish to leave something to tell him but they couldn’t. Because she thought that Arthur’s feeling and emotion of curiosity which he couldn’t hear the story from his parents might get much bigger than his sadness of his parents’ death due to the fact that his parents dumped and apart from him long time ago. Mentor Jang pointed out, “It’s good to have detail, however, it might be such an impurity unless it proceeds coherently with the entire musical.” It was a point-out that the detail might blur the core story by adding a new incident which was his parents’ undelivered message.
Also mentor Jang suggested to make the separated Arthur Savil’s murder scenes combine into big one. Then the speed tempo of work would be faster and story would be arranged simple so that the action itself could be focused and emphasized. Writer also got a heavy burden about the length of entire musical size. Writer said she’s been considering if showing the configuration of early phase was too long, then mentor Jang advised her choosing a way to reduce the length if necessary after writing all the stories.
At the work, Arthur Savil killed Rena possessedly on something. Meanwhile, there came the reversal that she was not killed on the wedding ceremony, mentor Jang said to the writer to explain about the reason why she did not die later even if it was a sort of reversal. Writer said she was about to make audiences imagine themselves because she’s been worried if the reversal might not be effective when she explained about it. Mentor Jang told her that such kind of trial might bring audience confused, so the writer should be responsible for that scene.