[On Stage] Translator Hwang Seok-hee: "Watching the 'Once' Lead Brings Back Old Memories"

"The guitar is like a friend... I've played since high school"
"Band activities in my twenties... Busking like 'Guy'"
"Enjoyed the translation work thanks to Irish folk music"

'Once,' released as a film in 2007 and adapted into a musical in 2011, features the protagonist 'Guy,' a street musician who always carries his guitar. Hwang Seok-hee, who translated Once, sometimes recalls his past self when he sees Guy's image.

Meeting Hwang Seok-hee at a cafe in Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul, he said, "I have been playing guitar since high school, and in my twenties, I was in a band for almost ten years. Even after quitting the band, I did busking for about four years." Four guitars hang in his room. He added, "The guitar is like a friend I just hug anytime, anywhere. It’s a special instrument because I can take it out and hold it whenever I want."

For him, translating the film Once was an exciting task. "There are many scenes of playing music on the street throughout the movie. Since I also sang a lot on the street, it felt very familiar. The songs Guy sings were often the ones I used to sing while busking, so I felt even more affection for them."

Hwang Seok-hee, Translator [Photo provided by Shinse Company]

The musical Once debuted on Broadway in the United States in 2012 and had its domestic premiere from December 2014 to March 2015. Ten years after the premiere, on February 19th, the revival stage opened at the Shinhan Card Artium in COEX, Seoul. The production company, Shinse Company, entrusted Hwang Seok-hee with a new translation for the revival. He said, "Since I translated the film, I really wanted to work on the musical as well. I tried to incorporate more of the interesting parts from the original English script than in the premiere."

Unlike typical musicals, Once has no orchestra accompaniment. Instead, the actors on stage play 16 instruments themselves to create the music. The central instrument is the guitar played by Guy.

Hwang Seok-hee said, "Since I’m familiar with the guitar, it was a comfortable task in many ways." To capture the flavor of the dialogue in the songs, he even recorded guide tracks by playing guitar and singing some songs himself to deliver to the actors.

He also said that the fact that the music featured in Once is in the Irish folk genre, which he likes, was an enjoyable element. "I love folk music so much that I had a strong desire to do it well."

Hwang Seok-hee, Translator [Photo provided by Shinse Company]

Once tells the story of a man and a woman who meet by chance, fall for each other, but ultimately cannot be together. Hwang Seok-hee explained that the charm of this work, which might seem like a repeatedly told old story, could be due to the Irish folk music. He quoted lines from the film he translated to explain the appeal of folk music.

"I once translated the Coen brothers' film 'Inside Llewyn Davis.' It’s a folk music film I really like, and there’s a funny scene where the line was translated as 'Folk is just the same old thing.' The original line is actually, 'Something that neither gets old nor becomes new?that’s folk.' Folk music might feel cheesy to some, but to others, it can come across as very hip."

Hwang Seok-hee said that the recently released Bob Dylan biopic 'Complete Unknown,' which deals with 1990s music, does not feel cheesy because it is folk music.

He evaluated that the musical Once is more polished than the film. "Many people like the film Once, and it has won many awards, but since it was made as a promotional film for an indie band, it has some rough parts. However, as it was adapted into a musical, the characters who were underdeveloped in the film were given backstories, and many parts were refined. The musical Once can be said to be a richer and more complete work."

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