[UNSCENE MAGAZINE] Empress of Austria, Korean Style

VigierKorea does justice to Michael Kunze and Sylvester Levay's "Elisabeth".

The most successful German-language musical of all-time, "Elisabeth", strives to impact Seoul's theatre-gazing crowds with a depiction of Empress Elisabeth's life and times. Translated into seven languages around the world and viewed by millions, it's a wild beast, with raunchy and "up-in-your-business" motions between Death and the Empress of Austria.

Somehow, this managed to meander its way into "cutesy" South Korea; however, Korea has done this quite grand rock musical justice.

Unfortunately, some scenes undoubtedly left stories untold. To begin with, the stage is much smaller, (as is everything in Korea). However, they utilized the small stage to their advantage with a continuously spinning center, which worked oh so nicely. A memorable stage scene involved the lead characters, major characters and a really cool meta-like presentation of a stage within a stage. It's essentially how they are all puppets in the royal etiquette. The portrayal left eyes glued and smiles on faces.

There are three sets of actors for the leads of Lucheni, Death and Elisabeth; starring Kim Soo-yong-I, Kim Junsu (from JYJ) and Ock Joo-hyun in this respective showing. The major roles of Rudolf, Franz Joseph and Sophie were played by Kim Seung-dae, Yoon Young-seok and Lee Tae-won.

The supporting cast, Franz Joseph and Sophie's portrayers did a wonderful job with marvelous stage presence. As for the leads, this Lucheni was too tame. Lucheni is a character haunted in the afterlife, desperately trying to prove his case. The performance from Kim Soo-yong-I lacked in all facets. This is the case with Rudolf too, whom was almost there, but didn't quite make the cut. On the other hand, Park Eun-tae and Jeon Dong-seok received exceptional praise in other presentations.

Both Death and Elisabeth were played with superb effort. In the beginning Joo-hyun's Elisabeth was a bit too lighthearted – especially considering the darkness of the story, but she makes up for it in the second act.

Continuing with Death, a German/Korean comparison is required to better explain Kim Junsu's positive portrayal. The German Death took a sort of jester role, seemingly toying with Elisabeth. Kim Junsu, however, had this psychotic, looming-like character. He also seemed to implement marionette-like, dancing motions in his performance. At times it's too much and ultimately leaves little room for the actual romance. When she dies, and finally chooses him, it seems more like he received a possession than finding his true love, but the overall performance worked.

Death's "skin ship" with Elisabeth was less raunchy than the German original. Yet, somehow they managed to play-up the lip-lock between Death and Rudolf. It's a good five seconds longer than it had to be.

Korea took on the challenge and they delivered. It's certainly worth the trip to Hangangjin for nothing less than ogling over the production's cute kid.

By: Gabriella A

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