Playwright Daniel K. Isaac recognizes that one of the most powerful sentences spoken in any language is “Tell me a story.” He proves his prowess in Once Upon a (korean) Time, his first play and a true beauty right out of the playwright-debut gate.
His title with its provocative lower-case, parenthetical “korean” announces that he’ll be telling a Korean story, although the story he tells involves many Korean stories as told by many storytellers. In time, he clearly infers that no matter what the culture—Korean or otherwise—the best stories acquire universal meaning.
In addition to his fascination with stories, Isaac is writing about storytellers. His umbrella tale is told by many storytellers, who in their turn and as centuries pass, tell versions of stories they hear from predecessors and pass along, stories that elide, change and often rise from the level of stories to myths—sustaining myths, at that.
In other, perhaps more straightforward words: with Once Upon a (korean) Time, Isaac is addressing his belief that from as long ago as prerecorded eras people have needed stories. Humans have demanded stories to make sense of who they are, how they came to be, and where they can hope and expect to go.
In a conventional review this would be where a reviewer would go into details about the stories told throughout the work’s 90-intermissionless minutes, starting with the story one Korean soldier under Japanese fire tells his terrified fellow soldier as a necessary calming gesture.
This is not to be here, due to Isaac’s compulsion to make his overall point not only about the balm stories provide but, more specifically, about the reassurance they may they provide about families. Isaac very righty understands that family stories—often specifically how one person’s family came to be—abound all over the globe.
(Isaac himself was brought up by a single immigrant mother and for quite a while knew nothing of his background, which is likely the impetus for his fervent, fevered manuscript.)
Indeed, from start to finish Isaac ‘s Once Upon a (korean) Time is so powerful that, as he eases, leaps, jolts, and hopscotches from one aspect of his stories to another, he risks overpowering his intentions. He would benefit from some dramaturgical rethinking of the many imaginative convolutions he introduces.
Otherwise, an amazed, occasionally dazed reviewer worries that the myriad ins-and-outs of Isaac’s stories will have the opposite effect of an enthusiastic reviewer’s intent: to encourage every reader to see for him- and herself what Isaac has so spectacularly wrought.
Merely suffice it to say there are two basic stories imparted—stories that begin with the standard Korean opening, “Long ago when tigers still smoked.” One involves young Shim Cheong, who, though eventually marrying a king, earlier attempts to sacrifice herself so that her blind father will gain his eyesight. (The story of sacrifice does echo Aeschyles’s Agamemnon, surely no writing accident) The second primary story involves a weaver woman having trouble raising her daughter alone who makes the sad decision to give the infant to a flock of birds.
Particularly relevant as well is the final sequence in which the seven-member troupe appear as contemporary friends at what one suggests should be termed an Adopted Korean American Support Group. During this climactic interlude a gay couple, a lesbian couple, and a straight couple swap stories as tellers and as figures in the story.
To repeat: Once Upon a (korean) Time is spectacular, and much of its mesmerizing spectacle is due to the production’s many contributors. First among them is director Ralph B. Pena, who brings this Ma-Yi Theater Company project to La MaMa in such glorious fashion.
Pena’s uniformly excellent cast members playing storytellers and many story characters are Sonnie Brown, Sasha Diamond, David Lee Huynh, Teresa Avia Lim, Sami Ma, Jon Norman Schneider, David Shih, and Jillian Sun. Isaac, who is also an actor (television’s Billions), is the only listed understudy.
Much more spectacle is provided by Se Hyun Oh, whose major pieces are two tall, elegantly peaked, supposedly stone walls. Even more spectacle is provided by costumer Phuong Nguyen. Yet more by lighting designer Oliver Wason, responsible for the bomb blasts and such, combined with Fabian Obisbo’s explosive, ebullient sound design and Yee Eun Nam’s flashy projections.
There were several minutes during Once Upon a (korean) Time when this spectacle spectator, seated almost at the back of the auditorium, saw tiny bubbles floating by, bubbles obviously another fanciful factor in Isaac’s fantasy. Bubbles frequently symbolize short-lived beauty. Not this time. They’re a delightfully unexpected element in a new play worthy of a long theater life.
After all, Isaac nods to a fact of life: We all have been told stories, and we all have stories to tell. Isaac has told his to show us the way.
Once Upon a (korean) Time opened August 31, 2022, at La Mama and runs through September 18. Tickets and information: lamama.org
