Actor Shim Eun-kyung will make her domestic theater debut with the National Theater Company of Korea <Banya Ajae>.

The National Theater Company of Korea announced on the 19th that actors Cho Seong-ha and Shim Eun-kyung will play the leads in the play <Banya Ajae>, which opens in May.

<Banya Ajae> adds a Korean variation to the play <Uncle Vanya> by Anton Chekhov. The 19th-century original, which captures the absurdity of life and human fate with a tender yet lively comic tone, has been transposed to a Korean setting.

Cho Seong-ha has been cast as the protagonist ‘Park I-bo (Vanya)’, who has devoted his entire life to the husband of his late sister, his brother-in-law, and, upon realizing that the man is an inept intellectual, is overwhelmed by a sense that his own life has been wholly negated.

Shim Eun-kyung will play ‘Seo Eun-hee (Sonya)’, the niece of Park I-bo, who is guileless and diligent but lives with the burden of a failed unrequited love and an appearance complex. Shim Eun-kyung has built a solid acting career through films <Sunny>, <Masquerade>, and <Miss Granny>. In Japan, she won the 2020 Japan Academy Prize for Best Actress for the film <The Journalist>, becoming the first Korean to do so, and recently received the Kinema Junpo Best Actress award, also the first Korean, for the film <Travel and Days>.

Im Kang-hee has been cast as ‘Oh Yeong-ran (Elena)’, who harbors ennui and emptiness behind an elegant and intellectual exterior, and Kim Seung-dae as the doctor ‘An Hae-il (Astrov)’, who lives with a sense of powerlessness. Actors Son Sook, Nam Myeong-ryeol, Ki Joo-bong, and Jeong Kyung-soon also appear.

Cho Kwang-hwa, noted for dense narratives and sensuous mise-en-scene, directs this <Banya Ajae>. The performances will run from May 22 to 31 at the National Theater of Korea Haeoreum Theater.

LG Arts Center will also stage <Vanya Samchon>, based on <Uncle Vanya>, during the same period (May 7-31). In <Vanya Samchon>, the role of Vanya goes to actor Lee Seo-jin, making his first appearance on a theater stage, and the role of Sonya goes to actor Go Ah-sung.