Broadway in Korea!

I have a confession to make. I am obsessed with musicals. When I visited my friend in New York this summer* and we pretty much saw a show every night. I'm addicted. It's rather embarrassing actually.

Most of my cd's at home? Musicals.

My i Tune's play lists? 45 of those are musical soundtracks (that is not including Disney soundtracks that might as well be considered musicals).

Some of those soundtracks aren't even in English. Five to be exact: 3 French, 1 Japanese, and, now, 1 in Korean.

Sad; just sad.

Why do I bring this up on a blog that is all about my time in Korea? Well, my obsession has crossed the Pacific! They have a Korean cast of one of my favorite musicals, Jekyll and Hyde, playing in Seoul right now!

I've seen a recording of a performance with David Hasslehoff and, well, he really left something to be desired. Nothing wrong with Mr. H; he's not bad but he for sure ain't great. I had heard that the lead of the Korean cast, Cho Seung-woo, was supposed to be flipping amazing so I really wanted to go see it.

The only problem was getting tickets.

I had been trying forever to get the stupid tickets, but the bloody website kept sucking. It would let me choose seats, put in all my information, but then when it came time to run my card it would bring up an error page (translated by Google for my convenience... thanks for telling me they suck, Google). I got tired of it and sent them an email complaining on Wednesday. I really didn't think I'd get an answer considering I'm sending an email in English to a Korean company, but, come Friday morning, they had sent me a reply telling me they were sorry for the inconvenience and to call this number to order tickets!

I figured it was the phone number for the English service at the ticket site or the theater. I called and totally confused the lady when I said I wanted to purchase tickets for Jekyll and Hyde. I realized after a few moments that they had sent me to a go between translator! She ended up setting up a 3 way conference call with the ticket box, translating for me and the lady on the other end. After a little dancing around, I got my ticket for that night at 8pm: front row, center, in the balcony. Perfect! That's my favorite place to watch a musical from! A little pricey, but totally worth it.

Got me into a Sunday dress (nothing fancy... I had a long train ride ahead of me) and headed out into the world for another adventure. I gave myself extra time in case I got lost on my way there. My track record is against me so I figured better safe than out of money and sorry.



It only got better after that. The subway ride was about an hour and a half all the way to the other side of Seoul at rush hour BUT I GOT A CORNER SEAT. In case you didn't know, that' the best seat you can get. This way I wasn't squished between two people's butts.

I got out at Jamsil station and it apparently lets out directly into the Lotte Department Store (or something... not quite sure what it's called) which is a super big SHOPPING MALL!!



I would have spent more time wandering around there, but 1) it smelled like the little dried squid/fish jerky place set up on the side and 2) I still had to find the theater and I only had 45 minutes to do so. That might not seem too bad, but getting lost can eat up a lot of time.

Once I finally found the exit (SEE!? Good thing I came early...), I saw that they had made a display window for Jekyll and Hyde. I took a moment to admire it but didn't bother taking a picture because, psh, the display windows I made for the musicals at BYU when I worked for Creative Services were way better than the little posters and props they had set up.

Just saying.

The directions I got were totally spot on. They said to look out for the Lotte statue which made no sense in the written instructions but walking out the exit instantly became clear from the glowing Lotte Raccoon.



There was even a sign at the bottom of the raccoon telling me where to go. Yay! No getting lost for Jen!



Across the street from the theater itself was what I think is Lotte World, or Korean Disneyland! See the castle?



Once I got to the theater, I decided to pick up my ticket and check my coat while the theater was still really empty.



Next step was finding a bathroom. I think they assumed that since I was at a Korean show, I must speak Korean so my requests for the "hwajangshil" were met with points and paragraphs in Korean. I just said "kamsamnida" and headed in that direction until I got lost again and asked the next employee for another point in the right direction. Found/used the potty, bought my program (and soundtrack... just had to), and got settled into my seat.

I was a little disappointed to find out that Cho Seung-woo wasn't going to be on that night (*sigh*) but I was hopeful that Kim Jun Hyun (sorry... I don't know if that is spelled right... I'm translating from the Hangul name) would do okay.



Now, at this point I could go on and on about how amazing the show was. Really; at the end I wished I had been able to go with someone so I could fangirl with them about how amazing it was. Kim Jun Hyun was amazing (I would venture to say that I liked him even better than Cho Seung-woo who I have now heard on the soundtrack I bought... which is really good). Playing Jekyll AND Hyde is hard, but Kim Jun Hyun did a really admirable job. He was a ridiculously frightening Hyde, by the way. He even made some ladies on the ground floor scream a little with one of his more dramatic entrances. And not just him. EVERYONE on the cast was fantastic. The two female leads were spot on. The chorus meshed perfect.

This was the absolute best live Broadway performance I have ever seen.

The only thing that would have made it better? If it had been in English. There were a few times I was thinking, "Less talking; more singing!" While some of the dialogue was interesting to watch the acting of, it's mostly plot moving dialogue which is so not needed when you already know the plot and are watching it again in a new language.

It got out about a quarter after 11pm so I snapped a quick blurry photo in front of the poster and headed out to grab a taxi.



The hour and a half subway ride was over in half an hour by taxi and left me with a bit of a sour stomach. I asked him to drop me off a little farther away from home than I originally asked so that I could walk in the "fresh" air to settle my tummy a bit after that crazy ride. Woof!

Because it's always fun to poke fun at The Hoff, I want to show you what a... um... interesting job he does in the challenging role of Jekyll/Hyde.

I'll let you decide for yourself. If you feel so inclined, compare Mr. Hasslehoff in his performance of "This is the Moment" to Mr. Cho's "지금 이 순간 (This Is The Moment)."



Poor David. He really wanted to take off his shirt at that one point, but they only let him take off the jacket. All those years on Baywatch and they don't even let him do slow motion running on the stage.

Now on to Cho Seung-woo.



Ten times better. And the guy I saw? Even BETTER.

Yes, I'm a nerd. And you know what? I like it! :)

*(Check out my old blog to read about my time in New York: Day 1, Days 2-4, Day 5, Day 6, Food!)