在高雅與通俗舞臺上欣賞韓流

我不常去韓國。我曾兩次到訪那里：第一次是在首爾跟一些小提琴經銷商會面，第二次是去平昌參加室內樂音樂節與夏令營。我看過的唯一一部韓國歌劇是在香港上演的。但幾周前在紐約，我花了很多時間在兩部與韓國有關的舞臺制作上。這讓我產生了這樣的沖動和錯覺——看一看自己的護照頁內是不是蓋了新的韓國入境章。

要把《KPOP》與《特洛伊女人》（TrojanWomen）放在同一個句子里提及，真的很難想象。更出乎意料的是，這兩臺戲的檔期竟然重合了。但它們絕對值得相提并論，這不僅是因為這兩出戲都與通常的國別聯想有別——如果我們要從現在已經過時的“文化純粹性”上考慮，這兩部作品都不是百分百的“韓劇”——再者，兩出戲都因為新冠疫情被迫接二連三地延期。盡管《KPOP》在百老匯舞臺上演的日子與韓國國立唱劇團登上布魯克林音樂學院（Brooklyn Academy of Music）的大舞臺完全重合，但此安排純屬偶然。在一個周末內看罷這兩臺戲之后，我的印象如下：它們最大的共同點是市場推廣部門都沒有完全充分向目標觀眾傳達戲劇的主要內容。

正如標題所示，《KPOP》的主題十分鮮明，核心就是展現收入上億的韓國流行音樂創意工業在過去幾年雄霸全球流行榜的驕人成績。其實，《KPOP》是一部嶄新的百老匯音樂劇，既不是流行音樂秀，也不是串燒現成流行曲的“點唱機音樂劇”（jukeboxmusical）， 而是一臺名副其實的“ 后臺音樂劇”（backstage musical）。音樂劇呈獻的全都是原創歌曲，講述了關乎三個流行樂組合為了成功所付出的努力與代價的故事，情節全屬虛構?！短芈逡僚恕返男再|則很不同：搬演了關于歐里庇德斯的古希臘故事，但用上的風格卻“融合了盤索里（pansori，朝鮮族的說唱音樂）與K-pop（韓國流行音樂）”的元素。演出方式是韓國唱劇而不是盤索里（唱劇是傳統舞臺劇種，盤索里則關乎敘事唱法與風格），演出效果遠不及《KPOP》里的韓流意味濃厚。

我們先談談《特洛伊女人》吧。在過去的20年里，我一直關注著導演王景生（Ong Keng Sen）。他來自新加坡這個華人、印度裔與馬來裔和大批來自西方國家的居民混聚在一起的國家，所以在他的眼中，文化的純粹性并不重要。他為所執導的《李爾王》（Lear ）搭建了莎士比亞話劇的骨架，來自中國、日本、泰國與印度尼西亞的藝術家同臺演出，每個人都展現了自己民族的傳統表演方式，更重要的是用著自己的母語。多年后，在羅伯特· 威爾遜（Robert Wilson）呈現了獨角戲《哈姆雷特》之后，王景生導演了屬于他的獨一無二的《哈姆雷特》，劇名主角甚至從未出現過。我到現在都搞不明白的是，這部作品還請來了柬埔寨傳統舞者進行演繹。聽說該劇在赫爾辛格城堡的演出轟動一時。

讓我告訴你吧，不是王景生執導的每一部戲都受到追捧、獲得空前成功的。這些年來，他的作品大概毀譽參半。如果是美國棒球手的話，你擁有50% 的擊球率就可以登上“國家名人堂”了?？墒?，在戲劇界，這種成功率算不上了不起。但即使是在那些自命不凡的失敗制作中，王景生的藝術視野的寬度與深思熟慮還是令人佩服。

好了，讓我們回到布魯克林音樂學院的舞臺。從王景生的藝術生涯宏觀來看，《特洛伊女人》算不上是最瘋狂地把不同文化與藝術門類混在一起的例子。其實，這部作品涉及的文化范圍不太廣，只限于雙邊對話，直接把古希臘故事移植至韓國歷史中，盡管沒有交代清楚是哪個朝代，但故事的發展順序簡單清晰。

大概30 年前，王景生首次執導的《特洛伊女人》是根據法國存在主義哲學家讓- 保羅· 薩特（Jean-Paul Sartre）的版本改編的，演出地點是新加坡一個礦場，法國殖民主義者替代了古希臘人，被壓迫的戰敗者是越南人而不是特洛伊的女人。10 年前，韓國國立唱劇團邀請王景生攜手合作，導演立刻想到這則故事與韓國歷史的重合點：希臘人戰勝特洛伊后如何對待那里的婦女，與20 世紀中葉日本侵略韓國后強搶慰安婦的惡行有不少雷同之處。

導演不想直接搬演原先的希臘話劇，而是重新撰寫劇本，并請來韓國編劇裴三植（Bae Sam-sik）創作一個完全融匯韓國文化的文本。他又找來兩位重要的音樂人物：盤索里藝術家安淑善（An Sooksun）與流行音樂人兼電影作曲家鄭在日（Jung Jaeil）。兩人分工合作，為這一臺戲締造出兩個不同層次的音樂世界。

姍姍來遲的美國首演營造出的效果簡直就是魔幻。如今，我們能在大銀幕與小屏幕上都領略到韓式戲劇的張力；在舞臺上，韓式故事的情節同樣奪目耀眼。王景生史詩般的處理手法表達出本能性的感情，凸顯了古希臘文化中跟韓國文化與表演傳統風格相似的地方。古代盤索里與當代韓國流行音樂中直達人心的力量，出乎意料地十分接近。

舞臺效果的成功也歸功于近年發生的事情。四年前，《特洛伊女人》在首爾與新加坡首演，場場滿座——包括倫敦、阿姆斯特丹與維也納，這些都是新冠疫情暴發之前的巡演站——可是我們今天的世界已經面目全非。其間，鄭在日為奪得奧斯卡最佳影片的《寄生蟲》（Parasite ）與獲艾美獎的電視連續劇《魷魚游戲》（Squid Game ）譜寫了配樂。而從敘事的角度來看，這幾年來無論是黑人維權運動還是俄羅斯與烏克蘭之間的戰爭，親人的顛沛流離以及婦女受到虐待的報道都跟我們關系密切。

根據以上的多個論點，市場推廣用“融合盤索里與K-pop 元素”來形容《特洛伊女人》似乎只是描述皮毛，并沒有任何深度。很多觀眾可以在劇中的社會與政治隱喻中找到共鳴，只可惜錯誤的營銷點沒有吸引到他們買票入場。

現在讓我們談談面對更棘手問題的《KPOP》。早在2017 年，這臺戲的第一版作為一個沉浸式制作，在外百老匯首演。觀眾進場后走進后臺，就像參與“焦點小組”（focus group）的活動一樣，游走于不同的房間，近距離窺探三個不同的韓國流行組合為了準備美國首演需要克服的重重難關。這個制作當年獲得劇評人的高度贊賞，也贏得外百老匯獎項。它的成功啟發了新的制作團隊聘請著名K-pop明星參演，雄心勃勃地想要征服百老匯舞臺。

很不幸地，新冠疫情讓一切叫停。本來安排好的維吉尼亞州的試演完全落空，導致編劇杰森· 金（Jason Kim）、作曲海倫· 樸（Helen Park， 兩人都是美籍韓裔） 與導演泰迪· 博爾戈曼（TeddyBergman）在一個沒有“安全網”的保護下，把新編版本直接搬上了百老匯舞臺。《特洛伊女人》的情況則不同，作品在新冠疫情暴發前已經成形，演出也早已取得好成績；而《KPOP》是在主創還沒有把工作完成之前就開啟了市場推廣計劃。

簡而言之，因為沒有人可以把故事具體地訴說出來，音樂劇《KPOP》在視覺宣傳方面跟眾多同時期的K-pop 巡回演唱會的廣告沒有區別。同時，因為曲目還沒有完全定下來，所以前期的營銷活動無法推廣任何原創歌曲。讓我在這里提出一個成功的歷史案例以作考證：安德魯· 勞埃德· 韋伯（Andrew Lloyd Webber）一鳴驚人的音樂劇《萬世巨星》（Jesus Christ Superstar ）在還未登陸百老匯之前，歌曲錄音于一年之前就已登上了流行榜，樂迷一早就懂得哼唱。《KPOP》在百老匯開始預演的時候，沒有授權任何歌曲上線大眾媒介平臺。

相比之下，這部音樂劇令人振奮，活力四射，娛樂性十足。雖然故事情節比不上《夢幻女郎》（Dreamgirls ）或《舞步青云》（A Chorus Line ），但音樂具有感染力，演員又唱又跳表現超棒。營銷計劃應該強調的是：演員陣容中那幾位名副其實的韓流明星，再加上極具才華的美籍亞裔歌舞演員們把這個規模不大的百老匯制作成功地營造出“虛構”的K-pop 組合PK，他們演出的含金量跟真實的韓流明星沒有什么區別，并且每個組合都有令人信服的背景故事。

劇評人紛紛發表看法，包括曾看過2017 年初版的人。某些人的觀點相當刻薄?！都~約時報》的評論尤其兇狠，連黑人戲劇聯盟都指責該報，認為其劇評帶有種族歧視色彩。就我個人而言，我覺得這些評論的確不太厚道——基本上，它批評《KPOP》模仿K-pop 的韓流色彩太過逼真，反而失去了2017 版本令人眼前一亮的戲劇性元素?！都~約時報》的評論如果包括多寫一點背景內容會有幫助嗎？這么說吧，對于劇評人來說肯定是沒有的——他們已經知道得夠多了?？墒?，如果這些評論能為讀者提供更詳盡的描述，讀者們起碼可以更具體地去衡量整個制作。

總的來說，營銷部門還算成功：很多人都聽說過《KPOP》，只可惜票房有些慘淡。大約一周后，我在香港遇上一位百老匯制作人。她在手機里翻出一段視頻讓我看，正是韓國人氣女子組合Blackpink 最近在美國巡演的一個小片段，排練顯得不夠精準，演出制作也馬馬虎虎?！澳憧?！這邊天才橫溢的年青百老匯演員們盡心盡力地排演但票房不盡如人意，那邊粗糙的韓流演唱會制作卻賺得盤滿缽滿！”

不出所料，我很快就聽到《KPOP》宣布停演的消息。最后一場現場演出比音樂劇錄音發行日期要早兩個月。我查閱詳細資料，發現自己還困在香港趕不及回紐約。但是，最后一場的最后15 分鐘將在線上直播，那恰好是我在機場等著上飛機的一刻鐘。

當我寫這篇文章的時候，我正在機場候機室看著《KPOP》的流媒體直播。視頻畫面看起來非常業余，就像一個坐在最后一排的粉絲用自己的手機偷拍的一樣——我猜，是不是制作方故意營造出這種氣氛，使得場景感覺更加真實。就算是預演期間，該劇的宣傳資料中再三強調《KPOP》將寫下歷史新章，是首個以韓國文化為基礎的百老匯音樂劇，團隊包括18 位亞裔與美籍亞裔首次在百老匯亮相。然而，今天的《KPOP》也創下百老匯的另一歷史新章：在百老匯壽命最短的劇目之一，預演44 場及正式公演17 場之后就停業了。

我十分同情那些“天才橫溢的年青百老匯演員”，自己也感到有些失望，因為本來以為這個秀將常駐百老匯，我隨時回來都可以重溫一番。還好，直播里的幾千條留言令我感到安慰：“至少我們可以期待音樂劇原班演員的唱片?！?/p>

I don’t often get to Korea. The only times I’ve beenthere were to meet with violin dealers in Seoul andto attend a chamber music festival and academy inthe mountains of Pyeongchang. The only Koreanopera I’ve ever seen was actually presented in HongKong. But a few weeks ago in New York I spent somuch time with two Korean stage productions that Iactually had to check my travel documents to see if I’dgotten a passport stamp.

It would be hard to think of another context whereKPOP and Trojan Women would appear in the samesentence， let alone be running on the same nights.But they deserve to be mentioned here side by side，not just because they both defy their presumednational associations—neither show is fully “Korean，”if we want to discuss misguided notions of culturalpurity—and not just because both had been delayeddue to Covid—though KPOP coming to Broadway atthe same time the National Changgeuk Company ofKorea came to the Brooklyn Academy of Music is anotable fluke at any point. After seeing both showsover a single weekend， I can claim that the biggestthing they had in common were respective marketingcampaigns that didn’t fully communicate to thepotential audiences what the shows were about.

KPOP， as the title suggests， refers to the multi-billiondollarKorean pop-music industry that has in the pastfew years conquered the world’s sales charts. But KPOPwas actually a new Broadway show， neither a popconcert nor a “jukebox musical” of pre-existing poptunes but rather a genuine “backstage musical” withoriginal songs recounting the struggles and sacrifices ofthree fictional acts specially created for the show. TrojanWoman， by contrast， promised a retelling of Euripides’classic through “a fusion of pansori and K-pop.” Butthe play was changgeuk， not pansori （the former is thestage genre， the later a style of narrative singing） andthe show was far less K-pop than KPOP.

Let’s start with Trojan Women ， whose director OngKeng Sen has been on my radar for two decades.Coming from Singapore—where the local populationis a mix of Chinese， Indian and Malay cultures alongwith a sizable number of Western expats—Ongdoesn’t believe much in cultural purity， which is whyhis Lear fleshes out the skeleton of Shakespeare’splay with artists from China， Japan， Thailand andIndonesia， each performing in his or her own nationalstyle and （more importantly） their own languages.Years later， after Robert Wilson performed his onemanHamlet ， Ong staged his own Hamlet without aHamlet but， for some reason I’ve never understood，Cambodian dancers. It was evidently a big hit atElsinore Castle.

This is not to say that Ong’s productions have beenconsistent. Over the years， his fiascos have probablyequaled his successes. A .500 batting average inbaseball can put you in the Hall of Fame; in theatre，not so much. But even in his most pretentiousfailures， Ong’s vision has remained both expansiveand reflective.

Which brings us to BAM. Trojan Women wasnowhere near the craziest mix of cultures andartforms in Ong’s oeuvre. In fact， the culturaldialogue was modestly bilateral， a direct transplantfrom ancient Greece to a vaguely historical Korea.Any further expansion was simply one of chronology.

Some 30 years ago， Ong directed his firstproduction of Trojan Woman （as adapted by Jean-Paul Sarte） in a Singapore granite quarry， refittingthe Greeks as French colonialists and the Trojansas conquered Vietnamese. A decade ago， when hewas first invited to collaborate with the NationalChangguek Company， Ong immediately thought ofthe story’s relationship with Korea， where the Greeks’treatment of the women of Troy after the city hadbeen conquered became an obvious parallel to theJapanese ransacking of Korea for comfort women inthe mid-20th century.

Rather than merely translating the play， Ong turnedto Korean playwright Bae Sam-sik to write a fullyacculturated version in Korean， then he turned to twoprominent musical figures， the pansori artist An Sooksunand the pop musician and film composer JungJae-il to develop a two-tiered sound world.

At the show’s long-delayed US premiere， the effectwas positively magical. The Korean storytellingprowess that we know from the large and smallscreen translated brilliantly to the stage. Ong’s epicsense of direction， reaching for huge fundamentalemotions， highlighted similarities in classical Greekand traditional Korean cultures and performingstyles. The shared immediacy of ancient pansoriand contemporary pop music was closer than you’dever imagine.

But something else was at work as well. In thefour years since Trojan Women played to sold-outhouses in Seoul and Singapore—as well as London，Amsterdam and Vienna before the pandemic pausedits travel schedule—the world has become a differentplace. For one thing， Jung Jae-il has since scored theOscar-winning film Parasite and the Emmy-winningtelevision series Squid Game. In storytelling terms，recent events from Black Lives Matter proteststo Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have made thesubject of splitting families and subjugating womendisturbingly relevant.

So “Pansori meets K-pop” barely conveys even theshow’s surface， let alone the depth. And more peoplewould surely have been struck by the social and politicalresonance， had they actually been enticed to attend.

Now over to KPOP ， where the situation was evenrockier. Back in 2017， an earlier version of the showdebuted off-Broadway as an immersive productioninviting audiences backstage as a “focus group，”moving from room to room eavesdropping on threedifferent Korean pop acts， each in various stages ofmeltdown as they prepare for their US debut. Theshow impressed critics and won awards， inspiringa new team of producers to hire real K-pop stars inhopes of taking the show to Broadway.

Unfortunately， Covid got in the way. An out-oftownengagement in Virginia crumbled， leavingwriter Jason Kim， composer Helen Park （bothKorean Americans） and director Teddy Bergman toreconceive the show directly for Broadway withouta safety net. Unlike Trojan Women ， which was fullyconceived with a solid performance record whenthe pandemic hit， KPOP had to start its promotionalcampaign before the creators had actually finalizedthe show.

In short， since no one could convey the story，the visual profile of KPOP the musical was largelyindistinguishable from dozens of actual K-pop actson tour. Nor was there any music yet to play fromthe show. As a point of reference， when AndrewLloyd Webber scored his first big hit with JesusChrist Superstar ， the album had been out for a yearand people were already humming the tunes. KPOPentered previews without a single track having beenapproved for release.

By contrast， the show itself was immensely enjoyable，high-octane entertainment. Its backstage story washardly in league with Dreamgirls or A Chorus Line ， butthe music was infectious and the cast phenomenal.What the marketing campaign should have conveyedwas that， thanks to a handful of genuine Koreanpop stars and a crew of immensely talented Asian-American singers and dancers， a modest Broadwayproduction had created three fake pop acts virtuallyindistinguishable from the real thing—and providedeach of them with a believable backstory.

The critics weighed in， some of whom having seenthe original production. Some of them were notkind. The New York Times review in particular wasso unkind that even the Black theatre professionalsaccused the paper of racism. I just thought it wasunkind—but again， it basically criticized KPOP forbeing too much like K-pop and not enough like theoriginal 2017 show. Would more information havehelped？ Well， probably not with the critic—he hadplenty of information already. But it would’ve helpedthe readers to make up their own minds.

Word did get out， though few people got aroundto buying tickets. A week or so later in Hong Kong， aBroadway producer shoved her phone in front of me.“Look at this！” she exclaimed as she started playing avideo she’d shot of a recent ill-rehearsed， uninspiredperformance by the actual K-pop group Blackpink ontour. “How can those incredible kids on Broadway belosing money ad this crap be a billion-dollar industry？”

Unsurprisingly， I soon heard that KPOP was closing，nearly two months before the cast album was duefor release. I checked the news and noticed that thefinal performance would take place while I was inHong Kong， and that the final 15 minutes of the showwould be streamed as I was waiting for a plane.

The stream， which I’m watching in the departurelounge as I write this， was incredibly amateurish，almost like a fan in the back row shooting on hismobile phone—which I suppose makes it kind ofauthentic. Even in previews， KPOP was being billedas “history-making，” the first Broadway musicalbased on Korean culture， with 18 young Asian andAsian-American performers making their Broadwaydebuts. Now it’s headed for the history books fora different reason： as one of the shortest runs inBroadway history， closing after only 17 performancesand 44 previews.

I feel for those “incredible kids on Broadway，” and Ialready miss that vague comfort that the show wouldalways be there if I wanted to come back. But anothercomfort is already taking root as I read the commentsfrom thousands of others watching the stream： “Atleast we’ll have the cast album.”