←Recommendations of HANNAH AND THE DREAD GAZEBO

A provocative — yet charming and accessible — inquiry into race, culture and family, this play has a brilliantly curious title, evoking a kind of gothic cautionary tale. The titular character has a major exam coming up to become a board certified pediatric neurosurgeon — “It’s a very important time for her,” as her father would say — but before she can sit for the test, Hannah learns that there’s trouble back home. Home is South Korea, a place Hannah barely knows. A beautiful play. I was fortunate to see its premiere at at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2017.

Jiehae Park’s “Hannah and the Dread Gazebo” merges the mythic and the modern in a dexterous and syncretic collision of time and space. The play takes on an almost Wonderlandian edge at times, but never to its detriment—Park keeps the story grounded (seamlessly!) through tight, polished characterization and meaningful familial relationships. A keen meditation on the power of folklore, legacy, coping with grief, and searching for a culture that was never quite yours to claim, “Hannah…” is an artfully-structured adventure from start to end to denouement and everywhere in between.

It is the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's pleasure to recommend Jihae Park and their play Hannah and the Dread Gazebo as a finalist for our 2013 National Playwrights Conference. The play rose through a competitive, anonymous, multileveled selection process that took nearly nine months to execute. As one finalist out of hundreds of submissions, the strength of this play’s writing has allowed this work to prosper in such a competitive selection process.

There's smart writing and really lovely characterizations in this emotionally resonant folk tale of family, loss, storytelling, art-making, and redemption. There’s an honesty, brokenness, and kindness to these characters that’s appealing; the characters’ unpretentious confusion and the play's acerbic undertone cuts through what might otherwise feel more whimsical than honest.