[On Stage] Baek Seok-gwang, Baeksang Acting Award Winner, Reflects on Hate Through 'Wife'

From Macho Man to Gay: Stunning One-Person Three-Role Acting Transformation "I Hope Many People Relate to the Wife"

[Asia Economy Reporter Byunghee Park] "It felt like being comforted and patted on the back for all the hard work so far."

Actor Baek Seok-gwang received the Best Actor Award in the theater category, revived after 18 years, at the 56th Baeksang Arts Awards last month. The work that brought him this honor was 'Wife,' which premiered domestically last year.

Baek Seok-gwang will perform the encore of 'Wife' from July 30 to August 2 at the Sejong Center S Theater. With 'Wife' winning three awards including Best Play at the 56th Dong-A Theater Awards and adding the Baeksang honor, public interest in 'Wife' is intense. All seats for six performances sold out within three minutes of ticket sales opening on the 25th of last month.

As it deals with 'queer' themes, 'Wife' is a play of comfort. The play is composed of four acts set in different time periods: 1959, 1988, 2020, and 2042. Characters appearing in each act form relationships across generations. In Act 2, the gay couple 'Eric' and 'Aiba' appear, and in Act 3, the older Aiba meets Eric's daughter 'Claire.' Baek Seok-gwang explained, "It is a work that contains the history of queer people continuing from the past to the future."

Rehearsal scene of the play 'Wife.' From the left, actors Jeonghwan, Baek Seokgwang, and Lee Jooyoung.
Photo by Sejong Center for the Performing Arts

Baek Seok-gwang appears as 'Robert,' the husband of the lesbian 'Daisy' in Act 1, as Aiba in Act 2, and as 'Finn,' Claire's boyfriend, in Act 3. His acting, rapidly transforming from Robert in Act 1 to Aiba in Act 2 with completely different personalities(?), is a highlight.

Robert is a macho man who becomes extremely agitated, calling the play 'A Doll's House'?which centers on women's liberation?that he watched with his wife Daisy trash. On the other hand, Aiba, who is gay, is a character who delivers lines like "Ejaculation in your eyes" with all sorts of flirtation and coquettishness.

Baek Seok-gwang shows that he knows how to use his body well by quickly transforming from Robert to Aiba. His major was dance. He attended the Korean National University of Arts' School of Dance and was a promising dancer who won the grand prize at the 2004 Dong-A Dance Competition. The awarded piece was 'Cheonga Cheonga!' Baek Seok-gwang performed a dual role of Simcheong and Sim Bong-sa, expressing the story of the day Simcheong decided to jump into Indangsu River. Winning the grand prize was a turning point in his life. By receiving the award, he was exempted from military service. Although he considered studying abroad and working with overseas dance companies, financial conditions were not favorable. He chose to pursue 'interdisciplinary study abroad.'

"Before enlisting in the military, I thought about studying theater. 'Cheonga Cheonga!' was a piece I created at 22, just before enlistment, to wrap up my dance career, and unexpectedly, I won an award. My friends all went abroad to study, and I wanted to go too, but it was difficult, so I decided to pursue interdisciplinary study and started theater. A few days after winning the award, I quit the School of Dance at K-Arts."

He balanced theater and dance but focused solely on theater from 2006. The turning point was re-enrolling at K-Arts, this time not in the School of Dance but in the Department of Theater Directing.

He said he relies heavily on his body while acting. "You need to feel emotions to hit a wall, but hitting the wall can also create emotions. 'Physicality' is deeply connected to psychology. I express differences in roles through physicality. Robert's authoritative attitude is expressed by moving his body less, while when acting as Aiba, I use very quick gestures to directly reveal his inner world."

He said that changing characters is not something he can do alone. "Between Acts 1 and 2, music plays?the music from the play 'A Doll's House' that Aiba saw in Act 2. When that music resonates on stage, that image is transmitted to me, and the moment I change from Robert's costume to shoes with different heels and tight clothes, my body changes and my mind changes. I receive help from colleagues preparing music, costumes, and so on. Theater is organic, so you can't do something great alone. The more you use each other's strengths and the more the staff, director, and actors communicate, the more strength you gain and the more confidently you can act."

Baek Seok-gwang said that while the story and stage setup have not changed much since the premiere, the play itself will be a much more developed form. This is because they can skip the process of interpreting queer-related codes embedded in the script, in which they spent a lot of time during the premiere. "During the premiere, most of the time was spent understanding what was meant by what was written in the script. This time, with understanding in place, we can express it more accurately. The actors have nurtured it for a year, so they will show a more mature appearance."

The second act scene of 'Wife,' which premiered last year. Oh Jeong-hwan (left) as Eric and Baek Seok-gwang as Aiba

'Wife' is a play with considerable social implications as it deals with queer people who are minorities and vulnerable. Baek Seok-gwang said his favorite line is Aiba's, "If you don't say 'This is me,' you are not free."

"I don't think coming out is only about saying 'I am homosexual.' It's about saying 'I am actually this kind of person,' 'I felt this way,' 'I like this and dislike that.' In other words, revealing myself is coming out. I think that's how I become free. I felt that the work and I form a mutual relationship as I ponder whether I am truly living saying 'This is me.'"

The expanded meaning of coming out Baek Seok-gwang mentioned seems closely related to social changes. "Back in 1959, the setting of Act 1, lesbian couples were so marginalized that they were not even mentioned. Now, I think they are mixing and blending within us, and we are gradually taking one step at a time."

On the other hand, queer people are still antagonized. Therefore, as queer people blend into our society, controversies also grow. Baek Seok-gwang revealed that 'Wife' made him think more deeply about the meaning of hatred. His first encounter with the concept of 'hatred' was in the play 'Ugly Man, Beautiful Woman' he appeared in last year. The play is based on the novel of the same name by Belgian author Am?lie Nothomb, who works in France, and Baek Seok-gwang played Deodat, an ugly man born with a hateful face.

"While studying the emotion of hatred, I was deeply impressed by the book 'The Society of Hatred.' Hatred arises when people do not know the object well?immigrants, homosexuals, for example. They are actually people not much different from us. So I hope many people watch 'Wife' and empathize with and share what situations these people faced and what emotions they felt. I hope it becomes an opportunity to feel, think, and realize. Isn't that the reason for watching a performance?"

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.