InKo presented the first ever Indo-Korean children’s theatre production, Heungbu Nolbu at the Museum Theatre, on Friday as part of the international Little Festival. With a cast made up of 17 children from Chennai and Seoul ranging between 4 and 19 years of age, the play teaches universal values of family, cooperation and goodwill, through song and dance. The play combines the old with the new, fusing traditional themes with modern dialogue and traditional Korean music with contemporary Disney-esque tunes. Produced by Natia Lee, and directed by Bradly Philip Curtin with assistance from Hans Kaushik, the play was a resounding a success. In short, Heungbu Nolbu is set around two brothers, one wealthy, greedy and mean spirited, the other poor and kind hearted. There are three goblins who watch over their actions and decide to reward the kind-hearted Heungbu and punish the mean Nolbu. The character Saswat Sundar Behera was particularly impressed, who not only delivered a solid acting performance, but break-danced with real skill and precision, playing a bold goblin and a sinister snake. Korean performer Kim Yebin also showed real promise as the villainous Nolbu. But all the actors seemed at home on the stage and considering how far some are from their home, each one performed exceptionally.Theatre Seoul is Korea’s first and largest English-speaking musical theatre company, with past musicals such as Peter Pan, Sound of Music and The Wizard of Oz. They claim to always combine education with drama, well they definitely did with this performance. It is difficult to think there of a single a word to describe the sound of a theatre, full of school children and the expression on every teacher’s face as they attempt to quieten them down. However the chaos was soon hushed with the colours, song and dances and no doubt the children soaked up every message buried in the subtext.When asked if they wanted more shows like this the children were ecstatic to hear about a German performance Troi on the stage on July 9, a folk tale quite similar to Pinocchio. (For deatils on The Little Festival and future performances call 28211115)
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