Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Hansol Jung’s WILD GOOSE DREAMS is lost in translation in several respects

• By drediman
• November 15, 2018
• No Comments

The company of Hansol Jung’s “Wild Goose Dreams” at the Public Theater. Photo by Joan Marcus.

Last night, Hansol Jung’s Wild Goose Dreams opened Off-Broadway at the Public Theater. Largely set in Seoul, the play tells the story of a pair of unlikely star-crossed lovers – one is a woman who defects from North Korea to South Korea, guiltily leaving behind her beloved father; the other is a South Korean man whose family life is in shambles (his increasingly estranged wife and daughter live in America). In their mutual loneliness, they find each other in the digital jungle that supposedly connects us all.

I really wanted to like the play. As a fan of the literary works of Haruki Murakami, I immediately took to Wild Goose Dreams’ frequent surreal flights of fancy. Where the play stalls is in its crucial intimate romantic moments, which invariably struck me as juvenile and trying. Something may have been lost in translation, but I found the dialogue between the two protagonists to be excruciatingly naive, especially given their thus far respective painful life journeys. Nevertheless, I took to some of the themes Ms. Jung has on her agenda, namely her musings on loneliness in our world of connectivity, as well as the definition of love.

One thing’s for sure, Wild Goose Dreams certainly looks stunning – kudos to designer Clint Ramos for creating an enveloping, neon-bright environment for the play; his set cleverly solves much of the issues I’ve had with the often problematic Martinson Hall. Indeed, Mr. Ramos’s work just may well be the production’s crowning achievement. Director Leigh Silverman valiantly endeavors to bring pizzazz to Ms. Jung’s busy but flat play, as do her over-eager cast.

SOMEWHAT RECOMMENDED

WILD GOOSE DREAMS
Off-Broadway, Play
The Public Theater
1 hour, 45 minutes (without an intermission)
Through December 16