Hyehwa No. 1

Located in the district of Hyehwa-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul is a small theater named “Theater Lab Hyehwa-dong No.1.”

Although the 60 seats are hard and spaced close enough to ensure that your bottom goes to sleep after 40 minutes and your knees touch someone else’s, and although the six-meter stage creates traffic problems when performers enter and leave, true theater is alive and well there.

The name of the theater, “Hyehwa-dong No.1,” is also the name of the performing group. The big names of the theater, including Gi Guk-seoh, Kim Ah-ra, and Lee Yoon-taek, set up the place and laid the groundwork for the success of “Hyehwa-dong No.1.”

After a second and third wave of actors and contributors, the fourth was introduced this year. Park Jung-seok (37) Kang Hwa-jung (36), Kim Han-gil (34), Woo Hyun-jong (34), Kim Jae-yeop (33), and Kim Hye-young (30) are the new members. The selection process is unique, as it requires the unanimous vote of the seniors. The new members will operate the theater, rotating every six months.

The oldest of the new members, Park, chuckles, “I feel like the morale-booster around here.”

The group’s first performance will be “Daehak-ro Complex” at the Dongin Festival.

“Even Daehak-ro nowadays has accepted fancy musicals and popular plays, and there’s no place for experimental plays that are the symbol of ‘Hyehwa-dong No.1.’ I believe that when choreographers stop developing complexes about popularity and the audience about experimental plays being difficult, we can be more faithful to the core of theater,” Park explained.

Even for a small theater in Daehak-ro, “Hyehwa-dong No.1” has gotten the worst of it, but the performers still believe that this is a haven for freedom and for new experiments. Called an “incubation theater,” the theater first took flight with Park Gun-hyung’s “Praise Youth,” and Yang Jeong-ung’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

More recently, Hyehwa-dong No.1 prepared for the play,” Where Have Today’s Books Gone” that opened on March 21. Next up are, “Don’t Die, I’ll Follow You” (Kang Hwa-jung), “Rental Flat” (Kim Han-gil), “Island” (Park Jung-seok), “Murderer’s Place,” (Kim Hye-young), and Jilma and Sollae” (Woo Hyun-jong), that will run until June 11. Tickets: 12,000-15,000 won. For all six, 60,000 “No.1 Mania Ticket” is available. For more information, call 02-3673-5576.

Sue-Jean Kang sjkang@donga.com