The South Korean original musical “Marie Curie” is set to debut at the Charing Cross Theatre in London, England, in June. 1, marking a significant milestone. It will be the first time a South Korean musical with local creators and actors from London will have an English-language version performed in the city for an extended period, this time a two-month period.
This is credited to Kang Byung-hwan (46), the head of the South Korean production company “LIVE Corp”. Kang dedicated to promoting South Korean original plays and musicals abroad, sees this as a groundbreaking achievement. “We’ve been working hard to bring our original musicals overseas, but I never imagined that “Marie Curie” would be our first long-term London production,” he said, during a recent interview. Kang has devoted himself to original plays and musicals in the local performance industry dominated by foreign-licensed works. He is also a pioneer who has paved the way for our musicals to be performed overseas, such as the Chinese tour of the “Fan Letter”.
The musical chronicles the life of Marie Curie (1867~1934), a Polish-born French physicist who won two Nobel Prizes, highlighting her struggles as an immigrant, a woman in the male-dominated scientific realm, and a person of special conscience who clashed with commercial greed. Kang reflected on the journey of bringing this musical to fruition. His journey to London has been full of twists and turns. “When we developed the winning script for the 2017 competition and put on a tryout performance the following year, there were both positive and negative reviews,” he said. “They thought that the musical was well written, but were also skeptical about whether a musical with a female protagonist would be successful in a market dominated by female audiences.”
The premiere was in 2020. “In a 300-seat theater, when the curtain came down, the audience rose to their feet and gave us a standing ovation. The actors and crew were all in tears, but I couldn’t cry because we had a long way to go.”
To keep the show being long-run, he had to scale it up. The Marie Curie was revived again the following year in a 700-seat theater. Despite being forced to “sit on chairs apart one from another” to maintain physical distancing during the COVID-19, the show went on to win five awards at the 5th Korea Musical Awards, including the grand prize.
The turning point came when the musical received praise in Poland, Marie Curie’s homeland. When the musical was invited to the screening of the movie “Parasite” at the 2020 Korean Week in Warsaw, it earned favorable reviews. “Imagine Polish people making a well-produced musical about Yi Sun-sin, a Korean admiral and national hero, and performing it in Seoul.” “The response to the Marie Curie was overwhelming: ‘Thank you, you did what we couldn’t do.’” In 2022, they were invited to perform at the Warsaw Music Gardens Festival, an international performing arts festival, where they won “Złota Konewka,” the Grand Prize.
Encouraged by this reception, Kang ventured to showcase the production in the UK - in 2022, a 45-minute highlight showcase, and in 2023, a full-length showcase in London. “The owner of the Charing Cross Theatre said that Marie Curie was a well-known figure and that there would be a student audience. If it goes well, let us scale it up and aim for Broadway, haha.” The head of the production company is looking forward to the “West End LIVE” taking place annually in Trafalgar Square in London on June 22-23 as much as he is to the opening of the Marie Curie. The festival, which attracted 65,000 people last year, will feature songs from more than 40 musicals performed that year.
“Just thinking about the song “Marie Curie” echoing through London’s Trafalgar Square makes my heart skip a beat.” Kang now hopes that “Marie Curie” will be the fanfare that signals the beginning of Korean-made musicals’ global expansion.
