Gabose Gabose

An epic of the 1894 Donghak Peasant Revolution

Gabose Gabose is a large-scale work about the 1894 Donghak Peasant Revolution that Kim Myung-gon had been preparing for seven or eight years. It depicts ordinary people rising up amid the collapse of the feudal order and foreign encroachment in the late nineteenth century, struggling to drive out foreign powers and build a new social order.

Breaking with conventional historical narrative, it draws on puppet play, pansori, traditional martial arts, kabuki and Japanese swordsmanship, creating a unique style that belongs neither to proscenium theatre nor to madang-geuk. Critic Lee Young-mi wrote that it “mobilised expressionist, epic, realist and madang-geuk techniques to sustain maximum tension while compressing a great deal of story into effective form.”

Believing that “madang-geuk is the most effective way to express the people’s view of the world,” Kim unfolded the whole revolution in five madang (acts) — not as one hero’s adventure, but through the lives of ordinary farmers, conflicts among the revolution’s leaders, the incompetence of the court, and the manoeuvres of Qing China and Japan. Sixteen actors played more than sixty characters, three or four roles each, while a narrating “clown” continually questioned the historical meaning of the events.

Featuring newly composed songs such as “Gabose,” “Sword Song,” “Lullaby” and “Nokdu-ya,” the production was hailed as a new attempt to renew the madang-geuk by exploring a wide range of artistic forms.