A coded e-mail arrives, ‘liquidate everything and return immediately.’

And suddenly, a day like no other quickly unfolds on stage.

An international dream team comes together

for what is sure to be the hit of the season.

Based on a popular novel by celebrated Korean author, Kim Young-ha

Adapted by Valeri Mrejen and Arthur Nauzyciel

Starring Korean screen actor Moon So-ri and stage hero, Ji Hyun-jun

Directed by a leading figure in French theater, Arthur Nauzyciel

Set design by Broadway’s Riccardo Hernendez

Costumes by Paris fashion designer Gaspard Yurkievich

Produced by the National Theater Company of Korea and CDN Orléans/Loiret/Centre

Kim Young-ha’s celebrated novel of the same title (a.k.a.Your Republic Is Calling You) has been transformed into an exciting stage piece by the French director Arthur Nauzyciel and renowned French writer, Valeri Mrejen for the National Theater Company of Korea. The powerful narrative of a seemingly lost and forgotten spy has been rewritten for the stage incorporating some of the actors’ own memories of North Korea and how they first got to learn about it. Arthur Nauzyciel was introduced to the Korean audience last year with his tour production of Jean Genet’s Splendid’s. This sold out performance received critical acclaim for its mesmerizing mise-en-scene incorporating poetic theatricality and cinematic aesthetics. Now Nauzyciel returns to Seoul with his unique style crossing the fine line between dream and reality in The Empire of Light. This highly anticipated international co-production between the National Theater Company of Korea and CDN Orléans/Loiret/Centre of France opens on March 4 for a three-week run. Along with internationally renowned set and costume designers, Korean screen star, Moon So-ri (Oasis & Peppermint Candy) and stage hero, Ji Hyun-jun (A Family on the Road & The Crucible) lead the cast in this world premier at the Myeongdong Theater in Seoul. The French premier will open in Orleans, France this coming May.

“Today was different from yesterday, and from any other day.”

The journey of memories

going through the light and the darkness.

One morning in 2005, a foreign film importer Kiyong Kim receives a mysterious e-mail, which reminds him of his almost-forgotten identity - he is a North Korean spy living in Seoul. With a sudden order from Pyongyang, he is given just 24 hours to erase all the evidence of his existence in Seoul. The author of this suspenseful and meditative story, Youngha Kim keenly grasps the sense of division and inconsolable pain embedded in the history of Korea and its people divided now for over 70 years. The buried memories of the people living on the borders of both the North and South come alive over a twenty-year time span from 1980 to 2000. ‘Liquidate everything and return immediately.’ The moment the order is given, the real identities of everyone are revealed and a world of light and darkness lurking beneath the surface of everyday life awakens.

Synopsis

Kiyeong, a foreign films importer, is a man like many others. His wife Mari sells cars. Nothing in their lives attracts attention. Seoul is the city where the two blend in, casually anonymous. A simple email suffices to alter their lives, sending shockwaves through the flat surface of their daily routine. A few pithy lines: “order number 4” brings Kim back to what he originally was: a spy operating for over 20 years out of South Korea. And now this ordinary man has 24 hours ahead of him to return to his native country, North Korea, and quickly put behind him the present life he has been leading unbeknown to everyone else.

“I was born in 1963 in Pyongyang, and became Kiyong Kim after having been sent to South Korea.”

- Kim Ki-yong, a dispatched spy, played by Ji Hyun-jun.

“There’s no way I would have been in the dark for so long. I’m your wife!”

- Ki-yong’s wife Jang Mari, performed by Moon So-ri.

CREDIT

Author Kim Young-ha

Adaptation Valérie Mréjen, Arthur Nauzyciel

Director Arthur Nauzyciel

Set Riccardo Hernendez

Video Pierre-Alain Giraud

Lights and video Ingi Bekk

Costumes Gaspard Yurkievich

Sound Xavier Jacquot

Make-up Baek Ji-young

Assistant Director Renaud Durville

Cast Moon So-ri, Ji Hyun-jun, Jung Seng-gil, Yang Dong-tak, Kim Han, Yang Young-mi, Kim Chung-hoon, Lee Hong-jae

Production National Theater Company of Korea and CDN Orléans/Loiret/Centre

Artistic Director Kim Yun-cheol

Director Arthur Nauzyciel

After studying visual arts and cinema, Arthur Nauzyciel began his career as an actor then turned to stage directing. Since then there have been numerous productions in France and abroad: JAN KARS KI (MON NOM EST UNE FICTION)/JAN KARS-KI(MY NAME IS A FICTION), adapted from the novel by Yannick Haenel; FAIM (HUNGER), based on Knut Hamsun’s novel, with Xavier Gallais(2011); Anton Chekov’s LA MOUETTE(THE SEAGULL) staged in the Cour d’honneur of the Papal Palace at the Avignon Festival (2012). In January 2015, he created SPLENDID’S by Jean Genet. Arthur Nauzyciel works regularly in the United States: in Atlanta he staged two plays by the French playwright, Bernard-Marie Koltès: BLACK BATTLES WITH DOGS (2001); and also in Atlanta, B-M Koltès’s ROBERTO ZUCCO (2004); in Boston, for the American Repertory Theater, Mike Leigh’s ABIGAIL’S PARTY (2007) and William Shakespeare’s JULIUS CAESAR (2008). In March 2016 he creates L’EMPIRE DES LUMI ÈRES (YOUR REPUB LIC IS CALLING YOU) by Kim Young-ha at the National Theater Company of Korea (NTCK), at Seoul. Arthur Nauzyciel is a recipient of the Villa Médicis Hors les Murs Prize. His production JAN KAR KSI (MY NAME IS A FIC TION ) was awarded the Georges-Lerminier Prize. Since June 1, 2007 he has been the director of the Centre Dramatique National Orléans/Loiret/Centre.

Author Kim Young-ha

Born in 1968, KIM Young-ha kicked off his writing career with his first novel I have the right to destroy myself, which won him the much-coveted Munhak-dongne prize in 1996. Since then, he has gained a reputation as the most talented and prolific Korean writer of his generation, publishing five novels and four collections of short stories. KIM’s novels and stories focus on articulating a new mode of sensitivity to life’s thrills and horrors as experienced by Koreans in the ever-changing context of a modern, globalized culture. In his search for a literary style, as is often the case with internationally renowned post-modern novelists, Kim Young-ha attempts to embark on exhilarating and provoking crossing of the boundaries of high and low genres of narratives. KIM’s fabulously mixed style is found in The Empire of Light, his fourth novel, in which he raises the question of human identity in a democratic and consumerist Korean society by presenting a North Korean spy and his family in Seoul in the manner of a crime fiction combined with a truncated family saga and naturalist depiction of everyday life. This novel was published in the United States in 2010 under a different title: Your Republic Is Calling You. Kim Young-ha began to earn his international recognition with a French translation of his first novel, which was published by Philippe Picquier in February 1998; the novel was published in nine other languages, including English and German. A French version of The Empire of Light came out early in 2009 and gained favorable attention from such leading newspapers as Le Monde and Libération.

Adaptation Valérie Mréjen

Valérie Mréjen was born in 1969 in Paris. She is a novelist, artist and director. She completed her studies at the École nationale supérieure d’arts de Cergy-Pontoise. Her first exhibition took place in 1997, and since she has participated in many festivals and exhibitions in France and abroad. Her first story, MON GRAN D-PÈRE, was published in 1999, followed by L’AGRUME (2001) and EAU SAU VAGE (2004), Allia Editions. Her latest novel, FOR ÊT NOIRE, was published by P.O.L in March 2012. In 2001 she was guest of honor of Oulipo, then in 2002-2003, resident of the Villa Medicis and in 2010 resident of the Villa Kujoyama in Kyoto. In 2008, the Jeu de Paume dedicated her a monographic exhibition entitled « La place de la Concorde». She has directed several short films, documentaries and a fictional movie: EN VILLE (co-authored with Bertrand Schefer) selected in «La quinzaine des réalisateurs», 2011 Cannes Festival. In August 2013, six of her short films were presented in the Film Festival outdoors at La Villette in Paris. In 2012, she was honored at the Centre Pompidou during one evening of Festival Hors Pistes in «New Festival», around the writer W. G. Sebald and the exhibition « Portraits de famille ». Member of pointligneplan collective, she was one of the artists presented at the exhibition «The Making of Movies» (Art House Bernard-Anthonioz in Nogent-sur-Marne). She staged her first show in 2014, TROIS HOMMES VER TS (coproduction: CDN Orléans, T2G and Centre Pompidou). In 2014, she created a short video for Arthur Nauzyciel’s KADDISH. She directed the 2015/2016 edition of the CDN Book.

Set Riccardo Hernandez

For Arthur Nauzyciel, he created the sets of: JULIUS CAESAR, JAN KARS KI (MY NAME IS A FICTION), RED WATERS , ABIGAIL’S PARTY, THE SEAGULL, SPLENDID’S, THE EMPIRE OF LIGH TS. Born in Cuba and raised in Buenos Aires, he studied in the United States, (Yale School of Drama). He works regularly on Broadway, where he won many awards for productions such as: THE PEOPLE IN THE PICTURE (at legendary Studio 54), CARO LINE OR CHANGE, PARA DE (Tony Awards nominee and Drama Desk), TOP DOG/UN DER DOG, PORG Y AN D BESS (Tony Awards 2012). For the opera, he created amongst others the sets of APPOMA TTOX by Philip Glass in 2007, LOST HIGH WAY direction Diane Paulus, based on David Lynch’s film, presented at the Young Vic, London (2008), and those of IL POS - TINO, composed by Daniel Catàn and directed by Ron Daniels, created at Los Angeles Opera and presented at Châtelet-Théâtre musical of Paris in 2011. Productions in which he participated were played in major theaters in New York and the United States : New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater, Lincoln Center, Goodman Theater, Kennedy Center, Mark Taper Forum, BAM... For the theater, he has worked with directors George C. Wolfe, Brian Kulik, Mary Zimmerman, Ron Daniels, Liz Diamond, Peter Wood, Rebecca Taichman and especially Robert Woodruff, Ethan Coen, John Turturro. More recently, in 2014, he designed the set of The Library a new play by Scott Z. Burns, directed by Steven Soderbergh at the The Public Theater (New York), and in 2015 he designed the set and the costumes of THE GIN GAME by D.L. Coburn, directed by Leonard Foglia, at Broadway.

Lights and video Ingi Bekk

The creation of THE EMPIRE OF LIGHT will be the first collaboration between Ingi Bekk and Arthur Nauzyciel. Ingi Bekk graduated from Royal Central School of Speech and Drama from the lighting design course. He works all over the world as a freelance video and lighting designer. Some of the shows he has worked on recently are:

- Benvenuto Cell ini directed by Terry Gilliam (English National Opera, 2015)

- Sorrow Beyond Dreams directed by Katie Mitchell (Burg Theatre Vienna, 2014)

- Forbidd en Zone directed by Katie Mitchell, (Managing Mayhem and Salzburg Festspiele, 2014)

- Privacy directed by Josie Rourke (Donmar Warehouse, 2014)

- Let It Be the musical and The Machine at Manchester International Festival and on Broadway (2013)

- THE MAGIC FLUTE directed by Simon McBurney (English National Opera, 2013)

He also works for dance (Ceremony of Innocence, Royal Opera House, 2014); musicals (Elf the Musical, Theatre Royal Bath, 2014 and Saturday Night Fever, UK Tour, 2014); and concerts (Backstreet Boys, Maceo Parker, Keane, Sheila E, Retro Stefson).

Video Pierre-Alain Giraud

The creation of THE EMPIRE OF LIGHT will be the first collaboration between Pierre-Alain Giraud and Arthur Nauzyciel. Born in Lyon in 1982, Pierre-Alain Giraud is a director, film editor and director of photography. He graduated from the engineering school of applied Arts and Crafts and the London Film School. He has directed several documentaries, short films and animations (in Iceland, for Valgeir Sigurdsson and Gabriela Friðriksdóttir in particular). In 2011, he directed a feature documentary, Everything Everywhere All The Time, selected at the Reykjavik International Film Festival and at the CPH : DOX Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, the same year. Recently he wrote and directed an animated film: Crepusculum (co-directed with Gabriela Friðriksdóttir, presented at the Contemporary Art Biennial of Lyon in 2013. He is currently preparing two movies, The Ascension with Alias Films (Germany / UK 2015) and A Cat In The Moon Owl ’s Nest (written with Gabríela Friðriksdóttir, Iceland 2015). He is also a musician and plays with Michael Wookey and Angil and the Hiddentracks.

Sound Xavier Jacquot

For Arthur Nauzyciel he designed the sound of: THE IMAGINARY IN VALID OR THE SILENCE OF MO LIÈRE, BLACK BATTLES WITH DOGS, HAPPY DAYS, OR DET (THE WOR D), JAN KARS KI (MY NAME IS A FICTION), THE SEAGULL, SPLENDID’S, THE EMPIRE OF LIGHTS. Sound designer, he studied at the Théâtre National in Strasburg. He has worked regularly with Eric Vigner, Thierry Collet, Daniel Mesguich, Xavier Maurel, Stéphane Braunschweig and on short features for the screen as well as on films and documentaries for television. He has chaired the “sound and video” department of the school of the Théâtre national in Strasburg from 2005 to 2008.