MAGNOLIA BALLOONS

Magnolia Balloons: Breathing Life into What Is Disappearing Playwright Bae Haeryul, known for her delicate portrayals of those unable to mourn, joins director Yoon Hyejin, who creates metaphorical worlds through a poetic sensibility, to present Magnolia Balloons. Set in the most secluded house in a remote village, the play sheds light on a world at the margins that the majority have long turned away from. Through the act of blowing “magnolia balloons,” the characters share experiences of hospitality and bring the dead back to life. This act of mourning—breathing a faint breath into magnolia petals that have fallen to the ground and been flattened—is passed down from one generation to the next, allowing it to survive. Magnolia Balloons seeks to remember those who have been forgotten and revive onstage this tenacious will to mourn. Manga (輓歌): A Song of Mourning for the Dead Manga (輓歌), a song of mourning for the dead, evokes deaths that have been tacitly neglected and serves as a vital device for extending hospitality in the play. Offering solace to the dead whose passing has been brought to light, it also resounds at the beginning and end of the performance as an incantation expressing the wish that the departed might return “as flowers, out of season.” The song is reimagined in the distinctive style of Gu-i-im, a group that explores the boundless possibilities of Korean traditional music through its singular imagination. May this song of consolation, reaching toward the absent places beyond the threshold of the theatre, transform the stage of Magnolia Balloons into a space of active hospitality.