When Spring Comes to Hills and Dales
CHARACTERS
DALLAE
BAWOO
DALLAE'S FATHER
POLICEMAN
ANIMALS:
RABBIT
DEER
BOAR
BEAR
SQUIRREL
Act One
Scene 1
A distant mountain.
A girl is weeding
in a little patch of a field
on the slope of the mountain.
Huge pine trees are scattered here and there.
Thick cotton-like masses of clouds
are idly floating in the sky.
Cicadas burst into rasping song
which gradually mounts to a crisis of
midsummer frenzy.
Every now and then,
the girl straightens her back
and looks up at the clouds.
She looks around
as if she hears something
or senses somebody
hiding and watching her.
She stops weeding
and listens for a while.
She hears nothing but the noisy cicadas.
She repeats these same gestures
as she continues to weed in the field.
The stage scenery reveals
clouds, pine trees and rocks.
It resembles a portion of a Korean folding screen that depicts the ten longevity symbols.
The shrill chirrup of cicadas is perhaps
the only element
that an original ten-longevity painting
does not show.
It is a very hot mid-summer day.
It is a little patch
of slash-and-burn field
deep and far up
in a mountainous country.
A village boy named Bawoo enters.
He hides himself behind a rock
and peeps at the girl working.
He steals his way toward the girl.
The girl is surprised by his approach.
She looks up at him,
deliberately averts her eyes,
and continues weeding.
Bawoo joins her in weeding.
BAWOO : Dallae!
DALLAE : ......
BAWOO : Have you heard it?
DALLAE : (Looks up) Heard what?
BAWOO : What people in the village were talking about.
DALLAE : (Abruptly getting up) It's a lie!
DALLAE : (Sits down) Whatever they say, it's not true.
BAWOO : I think so,too. Anyway......I don't care what they say as
long as you don't fail me.
DALLAE : ......
BAWOO : Only if you don't change your mind......
DALLAE : My mind has always been the same.
BAWOO : You mean it? Then, why......? In the fall......
DALLAE : In the fall......
BAWOO : Haven't we promised each other......?
DALLAE : Well, yes. But......
BAWOO : But?
DALLAE : But......
BAWOO : But what?
DALLAE : But, I have to wait and see......
BAWOO : What is there to wait and see?
DALLAE : Next spring, they are going to recruit more people......
DALLAE : (lifts her head and looks into his face.)
BAWOO : To help build a fortress in a far-away place.
DALLAE : Good Heavens!
BAWOO : I heard that it's going to take much longer this time.
DALLAE : ......
BAWOO : The rumor says that a lot of people will be recruited for
that work.
DALLAE : ......
BAWOO : So, if I have to go......
DALLAE : ......
BAWOO : You'll never know when I'm going to come back.
DALLAE : ......
BAWOO : If we get married in the fall...
DALLAE : ......
BAWOO : I'm less likely to be called if I'm married.
DALLAE : (Shakes her head.)
BAWOO : Why not?
DALLAE : ......
BAWOO : You mean you hate me?
DALLAE : (Shakes her head again.)
BAWOO : (Reassured) Then, what's the matter?
DALLAE : I'm going to kill myself.
BAWOO : (Looks at her in surprise.) Well......
Your father...... What did your father say about us?
DALLAE : Well, What could he say ? Father knows about us.
BAWOO : Then, what's the problem ?
DALLAE : ......
BAWOO : Listen, Dallae! I don't know what's hurting you but I don't
believe a word of what those people were talking about.
This time, it might take several years or more to build the
fortress. That's what I'm worried about.
DALLAE : Several years?
BAWOO : Yes. So once you and I are man and wife, things will
be different whatever they turn out to be. Only we have to
hurry before they get me. I don't understand what you're
really thingking about.
DALLAE : I'm sorry. I'm not thinking about anything.
BAWOO : I've got to get your final word today.
That's why I am here!
DALLAE : (Keeps hoeing.)
BAWOO : (Taking her hoe away from her) It's no time for that. When
we're married, I can do all the work for you.
DALLAE : ......
BAWOO : Yes?
DALLAE : ......
BAWOO : What's the matter?
DALLAE : ......
BAWOO : What's your answer, yes or no?
DALLAE : ......
BAWOO : If we let this year pass the way it is, that's the end.
We're through. Shall I ask your father to give me your
hand?
DALLAE : (Vigorously shakes her head.)
BAWOO : (Is silent for a while.)
All of a sudden, he grabs Dallae's hand
and pulls her behind a pine tree.
Dallae tries to get her hand free.
The two disappear behind the tree.
The cicadas suddenly stop singing.
Dallae manages to get herself free from Bawoo's grip and comes out. Bawoo follows her.
After standing helplessly near the tree,
Bawoo exits.
The cicadas resume their chorus.
Scene II
The same mountain.
Inside a cave that has the shape of a gourd dipper.
A bowl and a gourd dipper are abandoned on the ground.
As if sleepwalking, Dallae walks into the cave.
She looks down at the bowl and the gourd dipper.
As she sits down,
she picks up the dipper.
She strokes it
and puts it to her cheek.
She looks around the cave.
A long pause.
She lies down on the ground.
A long pause.
She sits up.
DALLAE : She kept repeating "I'm sorry. I'm sorry." Once when I was
a little girl, I clamored for a story so much that Grandma
finally gave in and told me a story about a salt peddler.
Once upon a time, there was a man who travelled around
peddling salt.
One day he was on his way to another village.
The sun was about to set and it was getting dark.
(She gestures as she tells the story.)
He was passing by a woman doing her laundry in a brook.
He asked her if she could find a place to spend the night
for him.
The woman kept her face down (She lowers her face down.)
and didn't even look up at him.
He was offended because she didn't answer him.
So he reprimanded her saying:
"I'm in need of help.
I've wound up here on this desolate mountain
with no place to spend the night.
I'm simply asking you to direct me to a place
where I can get some sleep.
How can you ignore me like I wasn't even here?"
The woman unwillingly lifted up her face......
(She lifts her face.)
Good Heavens! She had no eyes,
no eyebrows,
no nose, no mouth,
no nothing on her face.
It was just flat and bare like this
(She rubs down her own face with her hands.)
The salt peddler was scared out of his wits.
He threw away his salt sack
and ran like crazy.
The sun had just dropped down over the nearby pass. Fortunately,
he saw a light coming
from a little hut like ours. (She looks around the cave and points at it.)
He was so glad to see the house
that he ran right into it.
A young woman got up
to ask who he was and what he wanted.
He told her the whole story:
"....... So, I was so scared
that I ran with all my might."(She gestures running.)
"I even left my sack of salt."
He was recovering his breath from heavy panting.
(She recovers her breath.)
The young woman pointed at a corner of her room
and asked, "Is this yours?"
There, he saw his sack soaked with water.
He was about to scream out of terror
when he saw her face for the first time
as she turned toward him
--that same faceless, eggshell-like ghost.
(Dallae sticks her own face out.)
I was so terrified...... Grandma kept saying "I'm sorry." "I'm sorry." She said, "When I was about your age, my grandma told me the story. I was just as frightened as you are. Before telling you the story, I should have remembered how terrified I was." She kept apologizing to me. She took me out on her back to the nearby stream and caught some crawfish for me.
(Stroking the bowl)
Whenever I visited her since,
Grandma sat with her face turned away from me.
And she kept saying
"I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry."
Just like that time,
just like that time
when she told me the story,
she sat the other way round,
she sat the other way round
with her face turned away from me.
She holds the bowls in her bosom and lies on the ground.
A long pause.
She sits up.
She looks down at the bowl and the gourd dipper.
She strokes them gently.
END OF ACT ONE