Webtoon ‘Jeong-nyeon-i’ to be on stage at National Theater of Korea

▲ This photo, provided by Naver Webtoon, shows a poster for webtoon 'Jeong-nyeon-i.' (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)

▲ This photo, provided by National Theater of Korea, shows a poster for Changgeuk 'Jeong-nyeon-i.' (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)

▲ This photo, provided by Naver Webtoon, shows a scene from the webtoon 'Jeong-nyeon-i.' (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)

SEOUL, Jan. 9 (Yonhap) – With more and more webtoons being adapted to dramas or movies, a Changguek, a traditional Korean opera, that is also adapted from a Korean webtoon will be staged at the National Theater of Korea for the first time.

“Jeong-nyeon-i (translated),” a new Changgeuk to be presented by the National Changgeuk Company in March, is based on a webtoon of the same name which portrays the Korean classical opera of women that had attracted the public attention in the 1950s.

The changgeuk will tell the story of Yoon Jeong-nyeon, the protagonist with a talent for sound, who recklessly moves to Seoul from the countryside for her passion to join the Korean Theater Company to make money and goes through all kinds of challenges to eventually stage as the lead singer.

Two months prior to the webtoon being brought to the stage, Cartoonists Seo I-re and Namon, who wrote and painted the original webtoon, had an interview at Naver Square Jongno in Jongno-gu, Seoul, on Jan. 5.

Cartoonist Namon said, “As I working on the webtoon, Writer Seo and I both thought that it would be great for our work to be staged,” adding, “It is so exciting and amazing to watch Jeong-nyeon and the characters actually move and make sounds.”

Cartoonist Seo I-re also added her thoughts to the soon-to-be premiered Changgeuk: “I always thought that dancing will be relatively complicated to express in webtoons, compared to singing and acting,” saying, “I wonder how the dance Hye-rang performs, Ogomu (translated) which is very colorful and lively in nature, will be staged on the theater.”

The two cartoonists did not, in fact, participate in the adaptation.

Cartoonist Seo said, “I think there is a logic for each genre whenever one is adapted to another,” adding, “Even if both tell the same story, I think there are some parts that can be copied and pasted according to the genre, and I now tend to think that this part of the work has left my hands.”

She also expressed her anticipation for sequels that would be set on other theaters companies other than the “Maeran National Theater Company” where Jeong-nyeon-i acted while sharing the same universe as her work.

“Jeong-nyeon-i” will continue telling her story on air, as the webtoon will also be made into a drama. About 6 months after the webtoon had finished publishing, the Cartoonists acknowledged the power of their story as the foremost factor in the following confirmations to adapt the story into various genres, including Changgeuk and drama.

“The drama of our work was strong,” said Cartoonist Seo. She analyzed, “Our webtoon tells a story of a gifted country girl growing up, and every reader was cheering for Jeong-nyeon-i as they laughed and cried for her.”

Cartoonist Namon added, “I believe we have witnessed the power of text,” adding, “By the time the story of Jeong-nyeon-i was serialized, webtoon that show women as the main protagonists who lead the plot emerged, and I was able to meet many readers in the flow.”

Their work, “Jeong-nyeon-i,” is the epitome of female narratives in which female characters take every major role in the story, ranging from the main characters to rivals, assistants, villains, and lovers.

What makes the work much more inspiring is the unique genre of women’s national drama.

The traditional women’s national dramas were played exclusively by female characters, including the roles of princes and generals, which had attracted the attention of female fans that some even wrote letters of blood to the actor who played the prince.

In regards to this exceptional genre, Cartoonist Seo shared her moment: “I was taking a modern literature class at university, and I read a paper on women’s national dramas that my friend had shared. The actors’ characters were strong, and the play also had a strong and dense narrative, so I thought it would be fun to make a webtoon.”

She also explained, “The more I researched, the more I wanted to write a piece in women’s national drama and make it known. To do so, I thought webtoons would suit better than novels, which I originally used to write.”

The Cartoonist also provided an explanation for the sentence that is repeatedly used in the webtoon, “The most outstanding woman becomes the prince of this era who has disappeared.”

Cartoonist Seo said, “Women’s participation in society increased remarkably before and after the Korean War, and patriarchy grew weak. It used to be a time when the princess who waited for the prince could actually become a prince herself,” explaining, “Now we have entered into an era where all the princes and queens are gone, and anyone can become anything.”

The two Cartoonists initially planned for a tragic ending for “Jeong-nyeon-i” similar to the actual history of women’s national drama which gradually lost popularity and became a genre that most people are unaware of today. Jeong-nyeon-i’s story was also supposed to end with the main character and her colleagues still trying to have women’s national dramas put on stage in a small theater albeit with the loss of public interest.

This ending had made it to the “treatment” stage, the content stage without pictures; however, the illustrator eventually had it reversed into a happy ending at the last minute.

Cartoonist Namon said, “When I received the treatment from Cartoonist Seo, I thought that neither readers nor ourselves would be happy,” adding, “Despite the fact that we had many parts of our work borrowed from the history, I thought it was right to go according to the character’s plot as our work is fictional.”

“Even though I found the tragic ending to be more interesting and we tell old stories, I believed that it would be our job to tell our story in a way that the people who read our story today need,” added Cartoonist Seo.

Channgeuk “Jeong-nyeon-i”, the first adaptation of their webtoon, will be on stage on March 17.

(This article is translated from Korean to English by Ha eun Lee)

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