Yegam Theatre Company – Festival Theatre
Korean Yegam Theatre Company brings to Adelaide as one of the headline performances of the 2010 Oz Asia Festival, their production of Jump.
The high energy, highly entertaining show has the audience is fits of laughter as nine incredibly talented performers strut their stuff in this new-genre work. The piece is described as non-verbal comic martial arts performance which expertly blends Asian martial arts including Taekwondo with spectacular aerobatics and slapstick comedy.
Borrowing ideas from Comedia-del-arte, mime, panto and combining Jackie Chan with the Three Stooges, this slapstick creation is one of the most entertaining jaw dropping nights of theatre on offer at this year’s Oz Asia Festival .
The premise is set around a Korean family. The grandfather - Ui-Hyuk Jung, Father – Joon-Seok Song, Mother – Kyung-Ae Hong, Drunken Uncle – Jung-Hoon Shin, Daughter – Jae-Rim Lee and (future) Son-in-Law – Dong-Kyun Kim. Each trains daily in their martial art, wielding strength and weapons with great skill. Their afternoon is travelling relatively well, until that evening when two bungling burglars, Chang-Kyu Lee and Yeop Heo, stumble unsuspectingly into the home of this martial arts family. Hilarity ensues as the farce picks up pace and true to form there is much in and out of doors, and outrageous chase scenes. Combined with spectacular acrobatics, flipping, spinning and tight choreography the performance has the entire audience spellbound for its duration, the end coming too soon for many theatre goers, as was evidence from the huge round of applause that had the performers back for a full second curtain call.
Neatly holding the scene changes together, was Old Man, played by Myoung-Sub Kim. Completely unrelated to the story line he would find little breaks in the action to hobble across the stage in chase of the spotlight. Interacting with the audience and his cane, Kim had fantastic physicality and was highly entertaining.
This production is a winner and should not be missed.
Paul Rodda
1 Oct 2010
