Tale of haruk - Korean play

The theater enthusiast woke up in the evening and I went to watch "Tale of Haruk" at Ravindra Bharati. On the ticket it was printed that it's a korean play with subtitles. Too late, I already paid the money, so decided to give it a shot.

They have installed two large Televisions on both side of the stage to display subtitles. Auditorium is not completely filled. And the play started at the mentioned time. 

The story is a silly one. There is not much scope for the action for actors. There were no lengthy dialogues. The play offers little insight of Korea. However, i consider the play is great, not because of the story and all but based on how it is played.

The tallest guy among the actors, started performing magic a show. Rest of them joined him, thumping rudimentary musical instruments like water cans, water bottles, copper plates etc etc. The magician creates music out of just sounds. This act, worked as ice breaker. This made us get ready to accept uncommon things in the play so that we wont be shocked. And these are same instruments which offered background music through out the play. 

Its the story of an old and sad couple who pass time nagging each other. They pray the "Tree of spirit" for baby. The tree gives them an egg, and told them not to feed the baby anything other than dew. When the egg is hatched, the baby came out and said "Haruk", so they named him Haruk, little they know that its the only word or sound the baby is capable of pronouncing. While trying to teach the baby other words, the couple started learning Haruk-language. 

One day, tired of eating dew everyday , Haruk demands rice. After much thinking, the couple feeds him rice. That night, Haruk dreamt of Big things, and when he woke up , he become big and hungry. The more he ate, the more he gets bigger and the more hungry he became.  He ate the whole world, sun , moon and the old couple too. Then he gets lonely and starts crying. The tears of him become the rivers and his body become land and mountains. However, universe continue to cherish in his tummy including the old couple who continue to bicker.

More than story or acting skills of the artists, everybody was amazed by the way it is played.  The manifestation of Haruk growing beyond limits, the way they used puppets to represent the old couple in the climax to make us understand that how big the Haruk become, the use of lights are worth watching.