Beetlejuice Back on Stage: A Mischievous Afterlife That Celebrates Life
Creatrip Team
2 months ago
The musical Beetlejuice, revived at LG Art Center in Seoul through March 22, reinterprets Tim Burton’s 1988 film as a high-energy show that turns death into a lens on living. The production uses inventive analog effects, puppetry, and a transforming set to evoke the film’s eerie visuals—most notably a sandworm recreated without CGI—while mixing rock, gospel and Latin rhythms. The plot again pits the living and the dead under one roof, centered on Lydia (a girl who sees ghosts) and the troublemaking ghost Beetlejuice, here played by multiple actors in a commanding, narrator-like role. For this revival, comedian Lee Chang-ho contributed to the Korean adaptation, adding local “malmat” (Korean conversational flavor) — including casual lines like “should we put glass noodles in tteokbokki?” (tteokbokki is a spicy rice cake street food) — which sharpens the humor and grounds the show for Korean audiences. The musical shifts the tone from the film’s cynical grotesque to a warmer black comedy that asks not “how messy death is” but “how do we choose to live despite it,” ultimately presenting life’s messiness as proof that living is worth it.
