Squid Game star Park Hae-soo, actress Jeon Do-yeon to perform The Cherry Orchard in S’pore
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Stage production The Cherry Orchard, starring South Korean actors Jeon Do-yeon and Park Hae-soo, will be staged in Singapore from Nov 7 to 9.
PHOTO: DOYEONNNE/INSTAGRAM
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SEOUL – Following its 2024 premiere in Seoul, the South Korean production of Russian playwright Anton Chekhov’s 1904 play The Cherry Orchard will embark on an international tour in 2025, beginning with performances in Hong Kong and Singapore.
Cannes-winning South Korean actress Jeon Do-yeon and Squid Game (2021 to 2025) star Park Hae-soo and will reprise their roles as a chaebol heiress whose family business is on the verge of bankruptcy and a wealthy businessman from a lower social class respectively.
The 145-minute production is slated to run at Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay from Nov 7 to 9. There will be English subtitles on a side screen.
Helmed by Australian film director Simon Stone and produced by LG Arts Centre, it reimagines Chekhov’s tragicomedy through the lens of contemporary South Korea and marked Jeon’s return to the theatre stage after 27 years.
During its 2024 debut at LG Arts Centre Seoul, the show drew 40,000 theatregoers across 30 performances and achieved a 95 per cent seat occupancy rate.
The international tour begins from Sept 19 to 21 at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre, where it will open the Asia+ Festival 2025.
Stone, known for his deconstruction and reinterpretation of canonical works such as Medea and Ibsen House (1879), breathes new life into The Cherry Orchard, setting the original story of a crumbling Russian aristocracy and a rising middle class at the turn of the 20th century in a South Korea undergoing rapid transformation.
Jeon, 52, who made her film debut with the melodrama The Contact (1997), won Best Actress at the 60th Cannes Film Festival for her work in Secret Sunshine (2007). Her more recent film credits include Emergency Declaration (2021), Kill Boksoon (2023) and Revolver (2024), as well as K-dramas such as Crash Course In Romance (2023).
Park, 43, is best known for his role as the antagonist Sang-woo from the first season of Netflix hit series Squid Game. He started his career in theatre in 2007, before moving into film and television in 2012 and making his mark in the popular series Prison Playbook (2017 to 2018). THE KOREA HERALD/ ASIA NEWS NETWORK
BookIt/The Cherry Orchard
Where: The Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay, 1 Esplanade Drive str.sg/kDj5
When: Nov 7 and 8, 8pm; Nov 9, 2pm
Admission: $68 to $158 from
