Preview — Arang (몽유도원, 夢遊桃源) · 2026 Production

Arang (몽유도원, 夢遊桃源) is a Korean original musical inspired by Choi In-ho’s novella 몽유도원도 (夢遊桃源圖), a work that evokes the act of wandering into an imagined realm shaped by longing rather than depicting a literal paradise. Drawing on the folktale of Domi and Arang recorded in Samguk sagi, the musical explores the fragile boundary between illusion and reality, and the conflicts that arise from love, desire, and humanity’s pursuit of what cannot be fully possessed.

Rather than presenting the narrative as a conventional historical romance, the production emphasizes its mythic and psychological dimensions. It unfolds within a suspended space between waking life and inner vision, revealing how longing can both elevate and erode the human spirit. Through restrained staging and symbolic gesture, the work approaches the story as a meditation on desire itself—beautiful, painful, and ultimately irreversible.

At the center of the story stands Yeogyeong, the king of Baekje. Yeogyeong is portrayed by Julian Jootaek Kim as one of the dual cast. Inspired by the historical figure of King Gaero, the character is a ruler defined not by conquest but by yearning. He has survived through discipline and restraint in order to preserve his authority, yet remains deeply unsettled by the emotional rupture caused by a woman who first appears not as reality, but as an inner vision.

Rather than subjecting Yeogyeong to simple moral judgment, the production presents him as a layered and inward figure—shaped by obsession, illusion, and the belief that destiny can be claimed through will alone. His trajectory is not driven by power, but by desire, and by the quiet unraveling that follows when longing exceeds restraint. In this production, Yeogyeong emerges less as a transgressive monarch than as a tragic human figure whose inner conflict permeates the stage.