An evocative and creative meditation on suicide and an in-between afterlife but it is muddled by its confusing narrative
In Jungyun Lee’s experimental performance play Heaven, Hell and Somewhere Else, her lead protagonist seemingly contemplates suicide before taking the plunge and undergoing a series of strange experiences in an in-between of heaven and hell. Lee takes on a sensitive exploration of an individual struggling for a release she cannot find in life weighing up her potential afterlife.
The narrative quickly establishes the protagonist- whatever her reason- is struggling with forgiveness and acceptance as a spinning projection of Earth is overlaid with a series of surtitles in Korean and English which a voiceover reads instructing the ensemble to believe what they’re saying will come true, like “I am worth of enjoying the Earth”. Before the protagonist even appears the story quickly establishes that they will be far from happy.
However, once past the opening scenes the narrative coherency of the performance suffers. I am never entirely sure if the protagonist has genuinely committed suicide and is experiencing an in-between state, or if this is all her hypothetical imagining of her potential afterlife. Near the start she seemingly chooses to fall to her death. Then she has a message conversation with her friend if they want to live or die. Later followed by her friend too committing suicide at the end and she still standing. My doubt about what her exact status had remained by the end.
While I appreciate a show which does not spoon-feed its audience the answers, it relies too heavily on the audience to string together what the exact plot is. Some scenes operate as self-enclosed moments, like the cloud-ghost ensemble puking continuously before focus returns to the protagonist. If this scene were removed, it would have no bearing on the wider plot.
Yet structural issues aside, there are moments in the performance where I found myself feeling for the protagonist’s desperation as she cried out for salvation to her universal force of choice. Sadly the potency of the moment was undercut by the choice to reference her earlier flatulence.
But the minimalist set design is the show at its most fantastic. The stage being mostly blank allowed for the projections to evoke such a visceral quality. When the protagonist’s love of tteokbokki is projected centre stage onto a mattress I could see every detail of the delicious dish and found myself salivating at the sight of it. And reversely unsettled me as it switched to what appeared as a blood-soaked splat drenching the performer and the space. Projections are commonplace in theatre set design now that it is rare to bat an eye at them, yet this piece uses them so well it would be easy to forget that their illusions are not real.
While it is not a dance performance, choreography is the best term to describe some of the more hypnotic sequences of the show. For such a serious topic, there are moments of unexpected fun and joy. In one scene, the ensemble enacts a loop of themselves jumping off a platform onto the mattress below a noose to suggest hanging. As Korean pop blasts, the joyful strutting and skipping of the performers transforms into something resembling a child’s slumber as the morbid act becomes an act of jubilant release. I would happily have watched more choreographed scenes like those.