Kneehigh brings 'Dead Dog' to Seoul
A scene from Kneehigh’s “Dead Dog in a Suitcase,” which will be staged at LG Arts Center in southern Seoul from Thursday to Sunday / Courtesy of LG Arts Center
By Kwon Mee-yoo
British theater company Kneehigh will stage its hit “Dead Dog in a Suitcase (and other love songs)” at LG Arts Center in southern Seoul April 21-24.
The revolutionary musical is an adaptation of John Gay's 18th century ballad opera "The Beggar's Opera," which also inspired Bertolt Brecht’s 1928 musical "The Threepenny Opera," now considered the beginning of modern musical comedy.
In 2014, some 286 years after the premiere of “The Beggar's Opera,” Kneehigh reinvented the show in a contemporary setting, while sticking to the timeless innovative spirit pursued by both Gay and Brecht.
The 21th century adaptation revolves around contract killer Macheath, who is hired by entrepreneur Les Peachum to assassinate Mayor Goodman. The story takes a twist when Peachum's daughter Polly falls in love with Macheath and elopes with him.
The show offers an interesting combination of poverty, politics, injustice and corruption which were prevalent in 1728, just as they are in 2016.
Director Mike Shepherd said the piece is relevant to the modern day in a 2014 interview with British theater website WhatsOnStage.
"We have a dreadful government, who are asking us to buy into austerity and recession, who are telling terrible lies to keep in power,” Shepherd was quoted as saying. “The NHS (National Health Service) is up for sale, bankers bonuses are skyrocketing. In relatively recent times the company had travelled in Syria and Libya, it’s shocking what's happening there. Now is the time to rant, to have a revolution."
Charles Hazelwood's music combines a variety of different genres ranging from polyphony, Henry Percell's Baroque music, hip hop and folk to psychedelia, ska, grime and dubstep.
Kneehigh was founded in 1980 as a schoolteacher's theater workshop in Cornwall, southwestern England and is now celebrated as one of Britain's most exciting theater companies.
Tickets cost from 40,000 to 80,000 won. The musical is performed in English with Korean subtitles. For more information, visit www.lgart.com or call 02-2005-0114.