[On Stage] Theater Comeback Kim Sin-rok "I Wanted to Express the Teeming World of Life"

'Repairing the Living' Returns to Theater After 2 Years
One-Person Play "Strives to Portray 15 Roles and 'Things'"
"A Work That Questions Ways of Understanding Life and the World"

The play "Repairing the Living," performed at Jeongdong Theater, is a one-person show. The subject is organ transplantation. It covers the 24 hours after 19-year-old Simon Lambr? is involved in a traffic accident and his heart is transplanted to Claire, a patient with myocarditis. There are 15 characters in the play. Over about 100 minutes, one actor portrays Simon, the rescue workers at the accident scene, Simon's parents and girlfriend, the doctor and nurse performing the transplant surgery, Claire, and other characters. The actor also serves as the narrator. The stage setup consists of only one table. The table is used in various ways, becoming the accident vehicle Simon was in, then the operating room bed where Simon lies.

At the end of last month, I met actor Kim Shin-rok, who stars in "Repairing the Living," at Jeongdong Theater. I wondered if it might be burdensome to handle multiple complex situations and various characters alone. He said it was burdensome but rather wanted to express not only the characters but also 'things' like the pacemaker and scalpel. He thought the world might be formed through the interactions between living beings with the will to live and inanimate objects.

Kim Shin-rok repeatedly used the term "things" during the interview.

"There is a line in the scene where (thoracic surgeon) Virgilio, sweating in the operating room, asks why it is so hot. 'All the energy consumed by everything gathered here, the transfer of life, creates the humidity in this room.' There are people in the operating room, but also an electrocardiogram monitor, surgical gloves, and tools like scalpels. All the things?not just people but all these entities?intervene with each other, causing something to happen. I think that is the story this work wants to tell."

Actor Kim Shin-rok [Photo by Just Entertainment]

Meanwhile, in the operating room, Simon's body is cut into pieces for organ transplantation. Simon's mother, Marian, says, "If everything is cut into pieces like this, what can we call Simon now?"

Kim Shin-rok explained, "It may sound futile and irresponsible, but the fragmented Simon can be seen as nothing more than matter."

In other words, the humidity in the operating room is created not only by people but also by various things intervening, and Simon's fragmented body is matter, that is, things. Therefore, the distinction between a living human being and inanimate objects becomes meaningless.

Kim Shin-rok said, "When we try to understand this world by focusing on a single life or human, the world becomes incomprehensible. A new way of understanding is needed." He decided to appear in the play because he thought it raises questions about how to view and understand life and the world.

Kim Shin-rok used the expression "a teeming world of life." "There are many named worlds and many other unnamed worlds. These worlds are deeply intertwined and connected, and the play contains questions about how to understand such worlds. So I wanted to express many things swarming and feasting on this stage without missing anything."

In that sense, the rescue worker's line at the accident scene where Simon's car collided with a truck is impressive. The rescue worker says, "For reasons unknown, after the truck turned left, it could not return to its original position."

Kim Shin-rok explained, "The meaning of 'for reasons unknown' is not just that it is a mystery, but that so many factors were involved in the accident that it is difficult to pinpoint the cause."

Theater performance scene of 'Repairing the Living' [Photo by Project Group Ilda]

Emphasizing the expression of numerous things makes the number of actors irrelevant. If as many actors as characters appeared on stage, the play would inevitably focus on the characters. "I thought that having multiple actors might actually limit the number of things. So I believed it would be much more effective for one actor to express the many teeming things."

"Repairing the Living" marks Kim Shin-rok's return to the theater stage after two years. He debuted in 2004 and appeared on stage every year but skipped theater last year for the first time. This was because his broadcasting activities increased significantly after the drama "The Youngest Son of a Chaebol Family," which aired early last year, became popular. He appeared in the drama as Jin Hwa-young, the legitimate daughter of Chairman Jin Yang-cheol.

"I, like a truck, turned left for reasons unknown within the intervention of many actors I met, the teeming actors, and ended up standing in front of TV cameras and shooting commercials. I cannot say I got here through my own efforts. I hope that through the intervention of many more actors, I will be somewhere I do not even know in the future."

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