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'Please do not lose your mom'

Scenes from the musical "Please Look After Mom"

Kim Soung-nyo portrays everyone's mom onstage

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By Kwon Mee-yoo

Kim Soung-nyo, 61, becomes "mom" for everyone every night in the new musical "Please Look After Mom" staged at the grand theater in Chungmu Art Hall, central Seoul.

Reputed author Shin Kyung-sook's novel "Please Look After Mom" touched numerous readers in Korea and was recently published in English in the United States. It was staged as a play in 2009 and is now a musical with numbers written by composer Kim Hyung-suk.

Kim reflects the image of "mom", whom people can easily forget during their busy life.

She has been on stage for decades, blending song and dance together. "It could be madanggeuk (Korean traditional outdoor play) or a Western style musical. However, though I starred in Broadway musicals such as 'Porgy and Bess' and 'Seven Brides for Seven Brothers', I found myself more comfortable in works told in a Korean style", Kim said.

Before joining the musical, she had already read the celebrated book. "My husband first read the book and handed it to me. He cried a lot after reading it and I was wondering how good it was", she said. "But it left me cold at first. I have gone through much hardship and my mother did, too. When focusing on mother's work, the book wouldn't interest many people".

Her husband Son Jin-chaek runs Theatre Company Michoo and has staged numerous madanggeuk with Kim. Currently, Son is the artistic director of the National Theater Company of Korea.

However, she read the book again and tried to find what she missed at first for the musical.

Kim said the musical reminds the audience that they forget their mothers in their daily lives. "The hardship of mom is not everything in the story. It tries to tell that she has always been missing in our mind. In the musical, the remorse of children who couldn't bid a proper good-bye to their mom is added", she said. "Imagine missing the person you love. I think I can't stand it and that is what the musical is trying to reflect".

While the play tried to carry out every single word of the novel on stage, the musical version chose to select and focus.

"The original novel lists episodes related to mom through changing the narrator, but the literary charm could be a weakness on stage which requires the structure of introduction, development, turn and conclusion", she said. "The musical is not completely true to the book, but we will move the audience with the music".

For her, a mother is a person like air or water. "We realize her importance when she is not there", the actress said. "I am a daughter and a mother, so I understand both positions".

There is a scene in the musical when the elder daughter recites her plans for the New Year. "I was just like her. She has more than 10 plans, but not one of them has anything to do with her mother", she said.

She picked "I Am Sorry", the last number of the musical, as her favorite number. "The song is like a will written by the mom when the son and daughters cannot not find her. The lyrics are rather ordinary - she asks her children not to skip meals and to watch out for cars. Any mom would tell her children to do so", Kim said.

Kim said her mother would not cry if she was to see the musical. Her mother Park Ok-jin, who passed away in 2004, was a Korean classical musician specializing in pansori (Korean traditional music).

"Our mothers are gray like cindery ash and they seldom express their feelings. My mom would just nod if she was to see the show", she said. "Mother gave her all for us. Why would she cry?"

In the musical, the mother constantly says "sorry" to her family. "She was sorry to her son as her first daughter was her pride, while the younger one was her joy", she said. "I think I was a blunt daughter. If I have one more chance, I would like to be a warm, charming one to my mom".

The musical "Please Look After Mom" will produce tears, Kim said.

"However, just making the audience cry is not what we are trying to do. I want them to communicate well with their family and not to lose them, especially their mothers. They should do their best for her, so they don't regret when she is gone", the actress said.

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