Lee Sang-ho, Yoo Sung-sung, Moon So-ri, and Lee Seong-min—‘A Training Ground for Masterful Actors and a Towering Presence in the Theater World’: Director Lee Sang-woo Passes Away

By founding the theater company Yeonwoo Mudae and Chaimu, the director Lee Sang-woo, a former professor at the College of Theatre at Korea National University of Arts, died on the 26th from illness. He was 75.

The late man, a graduate of Seoul National University’s Department of Aesthetics, began his full-fledged theater career in 1977, while working at an advertising company. Along with classmates from the SNU College of Humanities and Social Sciences theater club, including Jeong Han-ryong and Kim Gwang-rim, he founded the theater company Yeonwoo Mudae.

He drew attention for his unmistakable directing sensibility, bringing weighty social themes to life in a brisk and humorous, satirical way. In particular, his signature work ‘Chilsu and Mansu’ swept the 23rd Dong-A Theater Awards and the Baeksang Arts Awards in 1987, and the following year it was also made into a film with the same title, creating a major stir.

In 1995, he founded the theater company Chaimu, breaking away from the existing heavy and dogmatic theater grammar. He released one after another works that put everyday language and sharp satire front and center, such as ‘A Story of an Always-Rotten Thief’ and ‘Bieonso’, earning praise from both the public and critics. Chaimu is short for ‘theater stage for dimension shifting’, and it reflects the late director’s philosophy: to show the world from a new perspective by “carrying” the audience and using enjoyment as fuel.

Moreover, the Chaimu he led is also highly renowned as a training ground that produced some of Korea’s finest master actors. Song Kang-ho, Moon Sung-keun, Yoo O-sung, Myung Gye-nam, Kang Shin-il, Moon So-ri, Lee Seong-min and many other top actors passed through this place and honed their acting skills.

Beyond the theater stage, in 2009 he took the helm of the feature film ‘Small Pond’ and debuted as a film director as well. This work was the first attempt to adapt the U.S. military’s mass killing of unarmed civilians in No-gneul-ri during the Korean War into a film, offering a glimpse into the late director’s deep awareness of history.

In addition, he devoted his entire life to arts education and creative work, including standing at the lectern as a professor at the Korea National University of Arts’ College of Theatre and focusing on training future generations up to August 2016.

Surviving him are his wife, Ryu Jong-sook, and his son, Lee Il-ha. The wake is set to be held in Room 2 at the Seoul National University Hospital funeral hall. The procession departs on the 28th at 9:00 a.m., and the burial site is the Seoul Memorial Park.