I traveled into Seoul to see Moulin Rouge yesterday, and I enjoyed it so much more than I thought I would! I was really hoping I'd get to see a musical while I'm in Korea, partly as I just love musicals so much, but I was also kind of curious about how the experience would compare to the West End or Broadway. I knew there would obviously be a language barrier, so when I saw a poster advertising Moulin Rouge over Christmas it felt perfect as I'd already seen it on Broadway so knew it well and had something to compare it to. And looking at it objectively without all of the emotions of seeing my favorite actor Aaron Tveit and it being the show that made me realize my dream of traveling to New York, I think I actually enjoyed it more in Korea? Although I admit I do think a big part of it was the language barrier as I couldn't tell the awful script so I could just project what they were saying and the tone didn't feel so inconsistent and it overall just felt less Glee like (Moulin Rouge is one of my all time favorite movies, and one of the worst written musicals I've ever seen. My feels on it are COMPLICATED)
The staging was ever so slightly different for Korea, there was no 'can-can seating' for one, which is where the stage in the Al Hirschfeld literally wraps around the first few rows of the audience. I think the stage was just too high for that to be viable, and it didn't hurt the show at all - if anything I always felt that the people in the can-can seats probably missed out on a lot of the show. There also weren't any side stages, or dancers gyrating in cages before the show started, which I can't say took away from the experience.
Top two photos of the Korean production, while the bottom photo is of the Broadway production for comparison. You can also just see the people sitting in the middle of the stage in the bottom photo, which are the can-can seats.
I felt like the emphasis is more on the acting in Korea than it perhaps is on Broadway and the West End. Like with Aaron Tveit's performance as Christian specifically I feel like fans are more impressed by his singing ability and whether or not he 'opts up' during El Tango De Roxanne rather than how he's actually performing the character, and with all of the actors I saw in the New York show they just felt more concerned with a voice performance and just projecting the acting as big as they could. And don't get me wrong I loved it and could tell how hard everyone was working on that stage, but the acting in the Korean production didn't feel as exaggerated or over the top and so just felt more believable as a result (and the theater in Korea was much bigger than the Al Hirschfeld too, before anyone tries to jump in with that). The Korean cast were still all incredible singers, but it didn't feel like the sole purpose of the performance, and if the singing had to be taken down a notch for an acting choice then so be it. I'm not saying either is better, it just felt like the priorities were different between the two productions and I liked it a lot more and I was able to get really lost in the show. I even shed a few tears when Satine died as the whole emotional turmoil of the characters leading up to that point just felt so much better executed than what I saw in New York which fell a bit flat.
I really loved the chemistry between the two leads, I saw Lee Choong Joo as Christian and Kim Ji Woo as Satine (there are two main casts as they perform more than 8 shows per week). Christian was perfect, he was so fresh faced with wide-eyed wonder that it felt very believable that he'd get obsessed with Satine and this was his first experience with love, whereas Satine felt older and world-weary by comparison. At least until halfway through Elephant Love Medley, when she begins to fall for Christian and starts to light up around him, and she's devastated by the Duke later in the show. It felt like such a natural progression to their relationship, and I believed in it, unlike on Broadway where I always got the vibe that Karen Olivo and Aaron Tveit didn't like each other much in real life which spilled over into complete indifference on the stage so I never bought into their romance. And I feel bad saying that because I really love Aaron and I feel like I'm really dragging him in this entry, but I truly feel that Christian is his weakest role he's ever done which is why it pains me so bad that he's so attached to it.
The whole entire Korean cast were amazing, with particular shout out to Zidler and Nini. I also really liked Lee Chang Yong as the Duke, a role that I found kind of ridiculous on Broadway, but he felt much less comical and more genuinely threatening in this production. Several times I felt like he had a kind of young De Niro energy, and he seemed like he was deriving actual pleasure from making these people as miserable as possible, which makes more sense for this iteration of the character honestly as he doesn’t really have any other motive unlike the movie.
I don't mean to do so many direct comparisons between Broadway and Seoul, but it's difficult not to when I have such an emotional attachment to this show. And I do feel like a lot of my preference for the Korean production comes down to the fact that I couldn't understand what they were saying, so I wasn't internally playing 'Name That Tune' every five minutes, and I couldn't pick up on the cheesy dialogue or inappropriate tone for the moment. I could just pretend to myself that they were saying the right thing for the given moment, and it's kind of a shame because it proves that this show could of worked if it was better written by people who actually cared about and understood the source material, which I felt the Korean production obviously does.
As for the actual theater experience in Korea: I was so anxious leading up to it, more so the idea of getting to my seat and having the box office staff (I had to collect my ticket, and OMG I'm so excited over a real, actual ticket and not a QR code!!! They even gave free photo cards of the leads 🥰 I hate this shift to digital only options in Europe so much, give me my memento!!!), the usher, potentially the audience members to get to my seat, and having them find out I couldn't speak Korean and omg why is she even here if she can't understand the show?? Of course none of that happened, and everything was fine. If anything I was surprised at how few people I had to interact with compared to the West End or Broadway: there were no security or bag checks, no one telling you where your seat is, staff in general felt kind of minimal. Other than the box office, the only person I interacted with was the usher checking my ticket as I went in and I could get away with a simple "감사합니다"
There's no food or drinks allowed in the actual theater which I liked a lot, as someone with auditory processing issues it really affects my ability to focus on and hear the show when someone is loudly chewing and rustling packets behind me, so I really appreciated that. For the actual BlueSquare Theatre specifically there isn't much of a rake to the seating, and the mezzanine/dress circle felt like it started about 5 miles back from the stage. I was 4th row from the front in the orchestra/stalls, which felt perfect for the height of the stage. Unlike London there's ample leg room and you don't have to fold yourself up like a pretzel to sit down. I also noticed a lot of people were there by themselves, which also made me really happy. I go to the theater by myself a lot, and the West End is intent on making this more and more difficult by even refusing to sell less than two tickets at a time in some instances which is gross. I like cultures that support independence!
I know my blog readership is exclusively Western, but I thought I'd detail it in case you ever find yourself over here. And I really do recommend going, I had so much fun and it's one of my favorite experiences I'd had in Korea. It also felt kind of testament to just how much I love musical theater as I just switched off to the language barrier and got into that zone and thoroughly loved it. It’s just the medium, it means so much to me.
I saw a poster on my way back to the train station for Sweeney Todd, so I guess now the question is do I go see that as well 😈
