How Do You Make Western Fairy Tales Appealing To Korean Audiences? Add Farting Animals And Kimchi.

Yesterday the kids I tutor hooked me up with some free tickets to a presentation of Alice! Alice!, a Korean "jazz musical" based on the classic tale, Alice In Wonderland. I turns out that a relative of my students was featured in this play, so in addition to some outstanding theater I got to go back stage and was given apple pie.


Allegedly a saxophone playing ant (Looked more like a ninteen aught two robber baron to me). This dude was related to the kid I tutor (uncle or cousin or second cousin or close family friend...I wasn't to sure) and the source of free tickets.

The show was pretty decent, but seemed to use the Alice In Wonderland as a rough guide. Since Alice! Alice! bore very little resemblance to the original story. First off the rabbit was not running late, but instead had a bad case of gas. The Cheshire Cat and Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb were combined into one...er two characters Bingle and Bangle who were basically hot Korean girls in cat outfits. And most of the plot was replaced with singing and dancing. The plot that did exist was kind of about respecting mom and not being a whiney bitch of an offspring, which is not a bad message.

The best thing about this show, and these kind of events in general because they offer up great chances to use fairly random Korean expressions. I mean where else would I be able to ask questions like, "Is that moustache real or fake?" "Are you really a person who farts a lot?" "Are you supposed to be Mark Twain or something?"