By Cain Barriskill
Humorous yet dark, macabre yet quirky, Californian director Tim Burton has been charming cinema-goers with his bizarre characters and fantastical worlds for well over two decades. Indeed his most recent cinematic contribution, an adaptation of Lewis Carol’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” has been the highest grossing film of 2010 and the fifth highest grossing of all time. Most of us are familiar with Burton’s box office hits which include “Sleepy Hollow,” “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and the animation “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” But this summer Seoul has witnessed one of Burton’s more obscure works being brought to life, in the unique form of shadow puppetry.
“The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories,” written entirely in metric verse, is a collection of bittersweet modern fairytales, penned and illustrated by the director himself. Each story is delightfully twisted and the humor is as black as it comes, as we would expect from Burton, yet the undertones are decidedly sinister and tragic. Like much of Burton’s work, the protagonists are outcasts, in this case a handful of strange, half-human children seeking to be loved and accepted in a cruel world. Children are of course the outcasts of the adult world and these loveable yet pitiful sprites could easily be Edward Scissorhands’ mutant younger siblings.
The project is the brainchild of Seoul resident and South African native Elinza Pretorius. “Initially it was the medium of shadow puppetry as visual theater that intrigued me. It allowed for so much more expression of stories that would be difficult to perform in traditional theatre settings. ‘The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy’ was a book of short poems by Burton which I have always loved. Rewriting ‘Oyster Boy’ into a puppet piece came naturally and is a tribute to the macabre world of Burton. Oyster boy is just so deliciously tragic and it relates very well to puppetry,” Elinza explained in an interview with The Korea Times.
The director and her cast seem to marvelously capture the dark spirit of Burton’s work while managing to keep an intrigued audience on the edge of their seats. While much of the play focuses on the title poem and its main character, Oyster Boy, the director cleverly interweaves the poems’ other characters, including Stain Boy, Voodoo Girl and Anchor Baby, into the plot.
When asked how the public reaction has been, Elinza, who first became interested in shadow puppetry whilst living in Northern Thailand, simply said “People have told us it was a magical experience . . . you can’t get better than that.”
The puppet theatre group’s next performance will be Sunday, Aug. 22 at Roofers in Itaewon. The event is part of a clothing drive for North Korean refugees and will also feature performances from several musicians. The event begins at 3 p.m. but patrons are advised to come early and although admission is free, all spare articles of clothing, particularly winter clothes, would be greatly appreciated. To get to Roofers come out Itaewon Station, exit 3, and walk straight. Just past Dunkin Donuts on your right, turn right up the hill. Walk for about 60 meters and Roofers is on your right on the 3rd floor.
Cain Barriskill is a contributing writer for The Korea Times