Indongcho (Honeysuckle)

Subtitle: When the Blue Mountains Call Out…

A courtroom drama weaving the most contentious issue of the division era — prisoners of conscience — into an epic narrative, and calling for the release of all who remained imprisoned.

“We will continue our work of ‘finding the other half.’ We earnestly hope it becomes a small stepping stone toward national reunification.”

On 19 January 1989, Cho Yong-sun, convicted as a “spy,” died in prison at the age of 74. Imprisoned since 1952 — for 37 years — he had lived half-paralysed and unable to speak for 25 of those years after suffering a burst blood vessel in 1954. (Hankyoreh, 9 February 1989)

Indongcho is a trial play in which prosecution and defence clash over a defendant charged under the National Security Act. Arirang took on the issue head-on out of a conviction that theatre at that moment could secure its artistic and social value only by having real political force.

The prosecution tries to paint Han Min-su, a young activist, as a subversive acting on North Korean orders; the defence insists he is a decent, healthy labour activist. Through the defence’s arguments and Han’s final statement, the play sharply criticises the illusions of the judiciary and the undemocratic nature of the law, asking whom the National Security Act really serves. Just as the judge is about to pronounce Han guilty, a narrator appears, asks the audience for their verdict and reads out their judgements as the curtain falls.

By making the audience the judges of the trial, the play invited natural participation while using inserted scenes of evidence to keep them from becoming passively absorbed. Its great significance lies in breaking a social taboo and bringing a forbidden political issue into public debate through performance.