Kim Cheol-sik of the Republic of Korea

“15,000 people have already laughed. 10,000 of them also cried.”

First staged by Arirang in 1994 as My Uncle the Wolf (from Choi Il-nam’s novel, directed by Bang Eun-mi), the play was re-adapted by Bang for the new millennium as the political satire Kim Cheol-sik of the Republic of Korea, offering a vision of leadership fit for a new era.

A strong script that went beyond simple satire, the earthy wit and acting of Park Chul-min (as Kim Cheol-sik) and the cast, and direction that outdid both madang-geuk and hip-hop musical spread by word of mouth. After the April 13 general election the run was extended through May and June, then brought back again and again by popular demand in July and August, followed by the Gwacheon World Madang Theatre Festival, a nationwide prison tour and an invitation to Canada — 252 performances for some 28,000 spectators in all. It is one of Arirang’s signature works.

In December 2002, amid a stormy presidential election, it returned. Where the 2000 version hoped to change society through satire, the 2002 version faced a political climate barely changed, and a public whose distrust and indifference had deepened further after the floods of Typhoon Rusa — and set out to restore laughter, dreams, and hope for a different world.

Ba-ra-ba-ra bam~ As a spaghetti-western theme takes over the stage, in swaggers the lone wolf Kim Cheol-sik with outrageous jokes to sort out Japanese thugs. He stages a one-man protest against forced Shinto worship and the expulsion of starving children, refuses food when national leaders Lyuh Woon-hyung and Kim Gu are assassinated, and heads to Seoul to find their killers. His brother Man-sik and sister-in-law, convinced the only patriotic duty left is to have children, try everything to marry him off — but Cheol-sik declares himself a lone wolf and runs for the National Assembly as an independent. In a world where votes are bought with rubber shoes and laundry soap, he loses again and again with nothing but his own two hands — yet discovers one truth: go to the people. Selling music in the markets, feeling the joys and sorrows of ordinary lives, he regains certainty about his path, as corruption and rigged elections push the people’s anger toward the April 19 Revolution.

The lone wolf Kim Cheol-sik and his granddaughter Hae-ri — what does their fateful meeting across time and place have to tell us?