National Singing Contest

A show for everyone

Think elders only enjoy certain kinds of shows, and children only children’s theatre? Choose a show the whole family can enjoy together: 21st-Century Madang-Akgeuk: National Singing Contest. Its theme is the love of family and neighbours that everyone can relate to. Rich in song, dance and japsaek folk play, this madang-geuk is easy to follow even for children and foreign audiences. We perform anywhere — village halls, welfare centres, sports fields, even markets — and we’ll keep going until everyone in Korea has seen it.

A joyful festival to bring people together Family quarrels, feuds with neighbours, the growing isolation of the elderly — let this show clear them away. Clap, cry and laugh along to rousing songs, and you’ll feel warm affection rising among family, neighbours, relatives and colleagues. Audience members can even enter the in-show singing contest and show off their voices.

Story Grandma Kim Bok-sun, nosy and fun-loving with the energy of youth, and Tak Hinh, a young bride from Vietnam who loves to sing, are close neighbours who ease each other’s loneliness — and team up to enter the National Singing Contest. But they run into opposition from Bok-sun’s children and Hinh’s father-in-law, the village head. Can the two break through prejudice against the elderly and immigrants and make it onto the show?

Characters Kim Bok-sun — the village’s famous busybody, a new-generation senior whose specialty is freestyle dancing; for her, singing is an oasis from loneliness as she waits for her children. Tak Hinh — the kind, pretty daughter-in-law of the village head, warm-hearted and quick to tears, well settled in Korea but still prone to mistakes. And their greatest obstacles: the son, the daughter and the father-in-law, with reasoned objections, stirred-up quarrels, physical blockades and dirty tricks — a comic parade of family resistance. In the name of family, can they stop these two women?