Now In Korea
“Tragedy is the Sharpest Lens on Wounds” — ‘Anthropolis’ Five-Part Greek Tragedy Series Opens
Creatrip Team
2 months ago
South Korea’s National Theater has launched the domestic premiere of Roland Schimmelpfennig’s five-part cycle Anthropolis (from Anthropocene + polis), reimagining the tragic House of Thebes to probe human nature in modern civilization. Director Yoon Han-sol staged Part 1, “Prologue/Dionysos,” through Nov. 26 in Myeongdong with live band, chorus (코러스), and actors singing and dancing lines. The “Dionysos” segment adapts Euripides’ Bacchae to depict the god punishing Pentheus; the production even projects a parody news bulletin of former president Yoon Seok-yeol’s illegal emergency decree to create topical resonance. Part 2, “Laios” (Nov. 6–22), newly written by Schimmelpfennig and directed/adapted by Kim Su-jung, reconstructs Oedipus’s father Laios’s rise to the throne; acclaimed actor Jeon Hye-jin returns to theater performing 18 roles in one. Creators say the cycle resists facile redemption, uses contemporary Korean elements to shorten audience distance, and invites viewers to reflect on the duality of perpetrator and victim and on how humane qualities are cultivated through effort and reflection.
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