On Wednesday, February 16th, I went to see Junsu's musical performance of "Tears of Heaven." It was absolutely amazing. I cried three times. It was soooooo good. Honestly, by the end of the performance, there was not a dry eye in the house. Guys were crying. It was really powerful and moving. Even thinking about this musical makes me tear up.
Brad Little plays the American commander and whenever there is a scene with him in it, all the other characters speak in English. The mix of languages was really cool and gave the musical a sense of realism.
It's very similar to Miss Saigon in that its about American soldiers or pro-American characters ruining the lives and happiness of Asia(ns) during the Vietnamese War.
The play starts out with Tianna, a famous singer from America, who arrived in Korea to give a concert. Tianna is a Vietnamese war orphan and went to Vietnam to try to find information about her parents. Queyen is her manager and aunt. She is visited by a writer named Joon who tells her that he knew her mother and tells the story of how they met.
Linh, a Vietnamese singer, has been dating Colonel Grayson, an American commander of the ROK-US forces in Vietnam. He is called away on business and proposes to Linh before he heads out. She accepts. While he is gone, she meets Joon, a Korean soldier. She realizes that she really doesn't love Grayson and she just accepted his proposal because of pressure and everyone telling her how lucky she is to have caught the attention of an American commander. Linh and Joon fall in love and everything is grand and perfect. His tour of duty was coming to an end and Linh planned on going with him to Korea.
However, her "friend" Queyen, who desperately wants to go to America, tells the Colonel of her plan when he comes back. Queyen was counting on Linh's relationship with the Colonel to secure a visa for her. So, the Colonel retaliates by extending Joon's tour of duty and sending him to the front lines.
Later on, Linh is told that Joon is dead and Grayson pressures her into going to America. Linh finds out that she is pregnant with Joon's child, but Queyen persuades her to go to America anyway and not tell Grayson. Queyen is packing up the house when Joon arrives. Queyen lies and says that Linh already went to America with Grayson. So, Joon believes that Linh betrayed him.
Queyen and Linh then fly to America. When Grayson arrives in America a month later, she is showing. Grayson wants her to put the baby up for adoption, which Linh won't agree to and she leaves him. Grayson then tells her of Queyen's betrayl. When Linh confronts Queyen, she miscarries. Linh dies in childbirth and leaves her daughter, named Tianna, in Queyen's care. Queyen raises Tianna as her own.
After Joon finishes this story, Tianna kicks Queyen out of her life and is reunited with her father.
It was truly awesome. Junsu gave an amazing performance. My one critique of him would be that he's not a musical actor, so he had to fight to be heard over the orchestra and other cast members. He didn't have the right breath support and he had to exert himself to get those notes out. That being said, he sang his songs beautifully and embodied the emotion of each song. Junsu was really kick ass. His acting as young Joon was really good. I was super impressed. He was really awkward as older Joon, but I guess that was part of his charm.
Incidences/Intense Scenes:
- During the bar scene when Queyen tells Grayson about Linh and Joon, there's a part in it when Grayson grabs Queyen's hair, pulls her head back, and then shoves her down. On my night, Brad Little must have been a little too "in-the-moment," because when he pushed her, he pushed her really hard which made her loose her balance off her chair and she ended up on her knees. I would have thought it was just part of the performance, but when the lights went off to change scenes, Brad Little put his arm around the actress and was frantically talking to her and it looked like he was apologizing and making sure she was okay.
- During "Tiger and the Dove" scene, Junsu accidently broke the tail of the tiger shadow puppet when he was a little too enthusiastic with his arm movements. At the end when she says goodnight and closes the door, Junsu looked down at the puppet and said, "Ah. This tiger's tail is missing. Oh well" LOL
- There's a Korean actor who is playing an American soldier named Bill. His English was fantastic and when he spoke Korean, he broke it up and put weird inflections on it to make it sound like it wasn't his first language. But, in the first scene in Vietnam, Grayson asks Bill to escort Linh home. But, he already had plans with Queyen, he tried to break it off, so he could follow the Colonel's orders. Then, Queyen whispers in his ear what she'll do to him, and he says in English, "OH! Oh, that's hot." Then, he asks Joon in Konglish to take Linh home instead of him. Retelling it, it's not particularly funny, but in the musical, it's really funny.
- When Grayson comes to give Joon his orders (at Linh's house), he essentially tries to blackmail Linh into going to America in order to save Joon from going to the front lines. But, Joon resists and Linh gives Grayson back the ring he gave her. Joon said, "My orders, sir." Then Grayson said, "Here's your one-way ticket to Hell, son." Then, Grayson puts his back on, just so, and screams in Joon's face, "TEN-HUT!" There was so much fucking anger where they both were staring each other down. It was intense. I don't think I breathed during this scene and my entire row jumped when Grayson yelled, "TEN-HUT!" After this scene, I think I said, "Holy fuck" about three thousand times.
- Junsu's English was so cute! "I believe you have something for me, Colonel" and "My orders, sir" and one other line that I couldn't understand even when I saw it for the second time.
- The choreography for the fall of Saigon scene/song was fantastic. There are times when they all line up on one side of the stage, walk across it, and at certain marks some of the dancers fall out of the line like they'd been shot.
- When Joon is captured and brought to an enemy camp, Sang (a VC soldier) grabbed Joon's hair and pulled his head back. His vocal chords were straining and it sounded like each line was dragged from his soul while he was trying not to cry. I was so shocked by the acting.
I'VE NEVER LOVED LIKE THIS: LINH & JOON
THIS IS WHEN LINH DECIDES TO ACCEPT JOON'S LOVE, LEAVE THE COLONEL, AND GO TO KOREA.
When I saw this musical for the second time, I sobbed during this song because I knew what horrors lay ahead of them and this song was so happy and so fucking optimistic. ;~;
"No need to tell me how the story ends...I've never loved like this. Isn't it wonderful? Isn't it destiny?"
LAST SONG OF THE FIRST HALF. AFTER JOON RECEIVES HIS ORDERS, HE'S ON HIS WAY TO THE FRONT LINES. SO, THIS SONG IS ABOUT THEM PLEDGING THEIR LOVE FOR EACH OTHER AND PROMISING THAT THEY'LL BE TOGETHER AGAIN ONE DAY.
Can you hear me? Can you hear me? / Cross the distance we’ll take flight / Carried on the wings of angels/ are the promises that we both made tonight / Can you hear me? Can you hear me?
This is the first song after intermission. One of my favorite songs in the musical. Junsu sings it so brilliantly... it's awesome. Basically this song is about him trying to rationalize killing people, knowing that he will have to live with the horrors that he is witnessing, and that the only thing that keeps him going is Linh.
EXCERPT OF LYRICS
How can I tell you/How it feels to see/A country torn in half/Ripped apart by war/How can I tell you/How it feels to know/The only difference between them and me / is who will stand and who will fall
I've had to learn/Learn how to kill/Learn how to hate against my will/Learn how to fight
No, I wasn't born/With a gun in my hand/But yet every soldier understands/When duty calls/It's somebody's freedom or your own
But what of these ghosts that I must carry to my grave/Did he have a wife/Did he have a dream/Someone who loved them like you loved me/Why do I have to take his last breath away
So you learn not to run/You learn not to cry/You learn how to aim your weapon high and with them all/Never regretting what you're fighting for
Cause what you're fighting for/Is the one thing/You have left
This is the song Linh sings after she is told that Joon is dead. The set designers really did a great job~ in general, but particularly with this scene. <3 It was beautifully sang and composed. This song made me cry.
EXCERPT OF LYRICS
A dream has died/And now it's time for fate to decide/How I'll go on without you/How I'll let go of your hand
Love divine/for one shining moment was mine/that ended before it began/so I'll cry tears of heaven
Hope still lives/inside me that's where it is/I'll cling to every tear drop/I'll reach for you with every breath I take
JOON'S REPRISE: "TEARS OF HEAVEN" AND "CAN YOU HEAR ME?" (AUDIO)
Last
song of "soldier" Joon. After Queyen tells him that Linh went to
America with Grayson, he does a reprise of "Tears of Heaven," then the
scene switches to Grayson sending Linh and Queyen off on a plane to San
Francisco. After the plane takes off and the airport/landing strip is
destroyed by bombs, Joon arrives and sings a heartbreaking reprise of
"Can You Hear Me?"
CAN YOU HEAR ME? REPRISE
LIVE MUSICAL VERSION
The second song of the musical: Tianna sings this song about how there's a void in her life because she doesn't know who her parents were or anything about their lives.
This moment should be filled with meaning / This moment should be flushed with sun / Instead this sorrow is all I feeling / Sadness every dream undone
My life has known so many secrets / The past to all hidden from my sight / I should be happy / but I'm plagued by energies in black and white
Like shadows on my heart that bind / shadows on my heart that see / A heritage that lives somewhere / Yet still unknown to me
A history that doesn't hurt / eclipses on the rain / that separates the light from dark / erasing the shadows on my heart
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| Shuttle to the theatre from the subway station |
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| Outside the National Theatre of Korea |
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| Painting of Junsu as "Joon" |
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| Today's Cast |
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| TEARS OF HEAVEN POSTER |
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| Cool tiled wall that takes up one side of the first floor |
CREDIT FOR PICS : blog.naver.com/cyzhvkfmvp
CREDIT FOR PICS : ssarang2323.blog.me
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