Romance, friendship, and funny. When you visit Dahaknno streets, you can feel these emotions. These emotions take majority of theme among Dahaknno performances. So people who see the performance only see the love story or enjoy just funny. To people who tired of these old-fashioned performances, The Sookmyung Times (SMT) introduces special odd performances to you.
Dance with Zombies Splattering Blood – Musical <Evil Dead>
Munhwa Ilbo, 07/07/18 Can you imagine an audience getting splattered with blood, but giggling while it happens? This strange situation is not a fantasy, but the truth. In the comic musical <Evil Dead>, it is possible, and everybody who has gone to see the show has experienced it. The story line of <Evil Dead> follows five students who go on a trip to a forest, where they find an old hut. In a hut, they face evil spirits and many zombies so they stand against them. The story is based on the movie, Evil Dead, made by Director Samuel Raimi who also produced the famous movie Spiderman. The most fascinating thing about this musical is that the audience can breathe together with the actors and actresses. At the beginning of the musical, the actors who are dressed up as zombies spray fake blood on the audience sitting in the first five rows. In fact, the audience members get raincoats from staff before the show. Moreover, not only do they get a ‘blood baptism,’ but they can enjoy the musical with zombies. These events have taken effect only in , so it made a deep impression on the original producer and writer. During performances of the musical, these special seats, named ‘splatter zone’, are always sold out!
Yesterday I Was a Criminal, Today You Are a Criminal – Play <Shear Madness>
Seoul newspaper 08/08/02
http://www.sharemadness.co.kr Who is the main actor? Who is the main actress? Who is the criminal? None of the characters knows, only the audience does. In Act 1 of the play <Shear Madness>, the audience decides on the main character, sub characters, and even things like trees or the moon on the day of the performance. In other words, the audience decides everything in the play. In Act 2, the audience directly participates in the play, and finds the criminal together with a detective. As far as the inquest goes, the audience also decides on ‘the criminal of the day’ by majority vote. The actors and actress act the final scene according to ‘the criminal of the day.’ The head of marketing of <Shear Madness> said, “At first I expected less of participation because I thought of Korean minds. However it is amazing. Surprisingly, the audiences enjoy the participation.” The plot depends on the audiences’ decision, so each actor or actress has to prepare a variety of final scenes and roles. These special charming points have lured many people to watch, and its open run continues.
True? Flase? Or Nothing? – Play <The Real Inspector Hound>
Economy21, 08/08/19 It is too bad that most people in the world do not know the truth and falsehoods clearly. People live consistently with the truths which past humans discovered. But taking the example of white--do you believe that this white color is really white? Could it possibly be black? Here is a game which distinguishes truth from lies. It is the Play <The Real Inspector Hound>.
Its construction is pretty unique. On the stage, there are one man and two women. Also, under the glass dome located on the upper side of the stage, two commentators talk about the play. On the surface they are moderate, but each commentator (a man and a woman) have different opinions and imaginations. The male commentator (Playboy), who is a pinch commentator of famous people, used to go out with one beautiful actress who is on the stage, so he decides to write a good review about her (Playboy’s thinking). However, he falls for another woman on stage (in conversation). Then the other famous commentator is discovered murdered on stage. From this, the audience can’t distinguish between fact and imagination. On stage, people suspect the playboy of being the murderer, and the beautiful actress feels murderous towards the other woman. Finally, the playboy and an actress are murdered. Because of the two stages, people can’t distinguish between what is truth and what is falsehood.
Audiences Want to Breathe Together With the Stage! In the musical <Evil Dead> and play <Shear Madness>, you may notice one common thing; the audience participates in these performances. Actually this is an ‘it trend’ among the Dahaknno performances. A performance manager told us, “These days, audiences choose active roles in the play rather than just staying in their seats for 2 hours. It is a distinct situation now that performances in which people get involved with the action on stage are being produced more and more often.” Song Han Saem, a producer of ShowFAC Inc. (production company of the musical <Evil Dead>) said, “After the 2002 World Cup Games, audiences had the desire to participate in dramas or musicals. Many of today’s performances took their inspiration from that. Like the ‘splatter zone,’ more and more audiences want to be in the special position in which they can “breathe” together with the actors on stage. It is connected with marketing, and customer purchasing desire and satisfaction measurements are dramatically increased.
From Television, ‘The Investigation Wind’ Blows on the Stage If you turn on the television, many channels show American investigation dramas like the C.S.I series. However, it is not only investigation series, but many American dramas have some plotline involving investigating something. In plain English, investigation drama is a trend. This trend didn’t remain only on television, but went out to the streets. However this style is different to investigation soap opera. In TV dramas, the final scene of an investigation series is always a happy ending, but the final scene of an investigation play is usually a sad ending, or one which people cannot guess. This is probably because the scenes of the play were directly delivered to the audience, so plays have to depict reality. Also, people want to feel more fascinating points compared with TV dramas, so investigating plays focus on the story or construction rather than just investigation for its own sake.
