|
 
Yi gads!
"Yi Sang Counts to Thirteen" is a playful sketch-comedy romp through the surreal (and perhaps fictitious) life of Korean writer Yi Sang.
By JOSHUA TANZER
Offoffoff.com
"Yi Sang Counts to Thirteen" is a collection of skits forming a kind of chopped-up tale of the early 20th-century surrealist Korean writer Yi Sang. There was a writer named Yi Sang (the name, we're told, means "strange" in Korean), but whether the show has any relation to his actual life, well, maybe it doesn't even matter.
|
| | | YI SANG COUNTS TO THIRTEEN | Written by: Sung Rno.
Cast: Deborah S. Craig, Paul H. Juhn, C.S. Lee.
| | SCHEDULE | Kraine Theater
85 East 4th St. near 2nd Ave.
Jan. 12 - Feb. 9, 2002
|
|
"What did I write about?" asks actor Paul H. Juhn. "Severed limbs, mirrors, the number 13, suicidal love triangles — the usual Korean subjects."
And what is this play — one of the most popular at last year's Fringe Festival — about? It's about three intersecting characters, loosely representing the long-deceased writer, his best friend (C.S. Lee) and his beautiful fiancee (Deborah S. Craig). It's also about burlesque, betrayal, being Asian, ridiculously passionate musical show-stoppers, and many gallons of Diet Coke. (In the 1930s?)
Some of the interlocking skits are quite funny. "You look familiar," the Asian Lee says to the equally Asian Craig. "So do you," she answers. "It must be the black hair."
Other scenes are melancholy, and still others are deliberately obtuse. It's a show full of nonsense, in fact — but wonderful, raucous nonsense. "Yi Sang" is a put-on, maybe, but never a letdown.
|
JANUARY 27, 2002
OFFOFFOFF.COM • THE GUIDE TO ALTERNATIVE NEW YORK
Reader comments on Yi Sang Counts to Thirteen:
Post a comment on "Yi Sang Counts to Thirteen"
|
|
|
