By Chung Ah-young
Staff Reporter
The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games have ended but its fever and thrill still linger. Many cheered and cried along with the winners and losers. What do sports mean for people? It continuously tests the physical limitations of human beings and drives them to extreme challenges. Athletic pursuits value spiritual and emotional development as much as physical strength.
Here are two plays each motivated by sports ― ``A Tournament'' and ``Lee Ki-dong Gymnasium'' that both focus on the human struggles and the challenges in life that are likened to sports games.
The play portrays ordinary people with the hope to live in a harsh reality against the backdrop of the street food vendors in Jamsil, southern Seoul in the 1980s before the Asian Games and the Seoul Olympic Games.
The play tells the story of three brothers who go in different directions while engaged in cutthroat competition. The drama shows a snapshot of life in the 80s which was exhausting but rewarding.
In the play, fencing is used as a motif but not as a noble sport but as a breakthrough to overcome the hardships and frustrations in life. To depict it realistically, actors underwent intensive training with the national fencing team. The trained actors will demonstrate sophisticated and flexible movements to instill the dramatic tensions through athleticism.
The drama is a warm-hearted, humanistic story that looks at ordinary life, with the frustration and hope that accompanies overcoming challenges.
Director Seo Jae-hyung, winner of the 2009 Young Artist Awards hosted by the Korean Ministry of Culture, and playwright Han A-rum will present their distinctive brand of image-activity theater.
The play will go on stage from April 20 to 25 at the LG Arts Center in southern Seoul. Tickets cost 40,000 won. For more information, call (02) 2005-0114 or visit www.lgart.com.
Boxing is a conventional sport that has been dealt with in many films and dramas. But its popularity has decreased in recent years.
"Lee Ki-dong Gymnasium" is the first boxing-motivated play in the nation, which actually stars eight boxers. Other actors also trained for three months to perform the roles of the pugilists.
Set in the 1980s, the play revolves around Lee Ki-dong who was a star fighter but has retired and now runs a gymnasium where he teaches boxing.
Students vary from an ordinary working man who wants to develop self-confidence through boxing and a woman who wants to lose weight, to a high school girl who wants to learn to defend herself. The play tells the stories of people who want to make changes to their routines.
Boxing in the play is used as a medium to vent their feelings and overcome their complexes.
``Boxing is an old-fashioned sport but I want to arouse passion for it again. In the play, boxing is not a duel but speaks to those of us who have lost faith in ourselves. It will have the power to revive our energy," director Son Hyo-won said in a press release.
The play was first performed in 2009 in Daehangno, central Seoul. The encore performance will be on stage through May 9 at Mosineun Saramdeul Theater, also in Daehangno. Tickets cost 25,000 won.