Hannah and the Dread Gazebo

After two full days of wonderful productions of Shakespeare plays, I saw my first non-Shakespeare play, again in the Thomas Theatre. It was another modern Asian immigrant story, as was last years Vietgone, but this one was from a Korean perspective. It was Hannah and the Dread Gazebo. It was comedic but ultimately very moving dealing with family and culture. It even got into the North/South Korea tensions, the DMZ, and had an appearance of the ghost of Kim Jong-il. I was very moved at the end, but not quite sure exactly why, except there was resolution of family connections and clarity of the character’s cultural history. The staging was clever and sparse, and they used the Thomas in a 3-sided configuration, at one point dropping down the wall of the 4th side to provide an interesting, surreal, place. A very enjoyable play.
Trailer