The play "Gullivers," a reimagining of Gulliver's Travels, opens on December 9

From December 9 to 18 at Seongsu Art Hall Theater
‘A Journey in Contemporary Civilization’ Directed and Reconstructed by Kim Hyuntak After Disbandment

The theater company Seongbukdong Bidulgi announced on the 28th that they will perform the play "Gullivers" from December 9 to 18 at the Seongsu Art Hall Theater in Seoul. Photo by Seongbukdong Bidulgi

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Heeyoon] A play that reinterprets the land of the little people from Gulliver's Travels as a world inside a smartphone is coming to audiences.

The theater company Seongbukdong Bidulgi announced on the 28th that the play "Gullivers" will be performed at the Seongsu Art Hall Theater in Seoul from December 9 to 18.

"Gullivers" is a work directed by Kim Hyuntak, a leading figure in avant-garde theater, who deconstructed and reassembled Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels." It contains the repeated tragedies of history despite changes in era and generation.

"Gulliver's Travels" is a novel published in four parts. It is a social critique novel that reveals the bare face of human society within the form of a fairy-tale-like travel story. Gulliver travels to the land of the little people and the land of giants, feeling the irrationality in the rules and appearances of each society. By encountering the characteristics and pros and cons of these strange societies one by one, he ultimately discovers that all of these are problems inherent in our own society.

"Gullivers" is a travelogue about the world of apps inside a smartphone. It is set against the backdrop of the land of the little people from the first part of "Gulliver's Travels." A large screen installed on the stage serves as the background, and the actors become individual apps. All the audience watching this become Gulliver themselves. The stage begins with the smartphone alarm of the protagonist on the screen, and the audience does not remain passive but becomes the owner of another smartphone, experiencing a day within the stage.

Just as apps on a smartphone quickly flash across the screen, the fragmented gestures and shadows of the actors on stage come closer in a larger way. At the moment when the apps, each with distinct characteristics, move busier than the owner's day, past trauma and present trauma collide. The tragic history and the survivor's guilt transfer to us in the analog world, and the stage ends.

The work was recognized for its artistic value by being selected for the 2022 Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture Artistic Creation Support Project. Directed by Kim Hyuntak, known for "Media on Media" and "Bicycle Bye Cycle," the play offers audiences a journey through contemporary civilization from Gulliver's perspective.

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