Watching After, the dialogue-free play directed by Korean theatre director Kim So Jung, was less like viewing a performance and more like entering an entirely new theatrical experience.
Not long after the play began, rain descended on stage. From my seat near the centre of the auditorium, I could hear it, see it, almost feel it — the rain conjured through sound, image, and light was so startlingly real that I sensed the spray of droplets brushing against my skin.
This rain was not a one-time effect. It returned repeatedly, each time in a different rhythm, each time layered with fresh meaning. One such shower carried me instantly to Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. Another drew me back two decades, to my own play Godmother, staged by Hengool Theatre. In that production, a scene of storm, thunder, and rain framed a brutal killing — a moment I had scripted from a real incident reported in the press. Today I wonder: what if, on that stage years ago, I had been able to create a rain like the one in After?
But After is far from being a triumph of technique alone. It dazzles with creative imagination and with a rare capacity to stir genuine emotion. Too often, technically ambitious or highly stylised plays sacrifice emotional resonance and leave the audience unmoved. Here, however, the precision of stagecraft gives way to a profoundly human appeal: a family’s journey balanced on a single bicycle; a toy car, and a mother, after many years, gently wiping away the dust from it — the son gone, only his memory remaining beneath that fine layer of dust. And there were many such moments.
The producers explain: “The central aim of the play is to move away from traditional theatre forms, using the actor’s body to convey character’s thoughts, emotions, environment, psychology, and story.” They clarify further: “This is not an abstract expression but a concrete play with characters — a physical play.” And indeed, they deliver exactly what they promise — with intelligence, craft, and a fine-tuned touch on the emotional strings.
Gratitude is due to the Bhulung Buthur International Theatre Festival for making such an experience possible.
