Hannah and the Dread Gazebo

Hannah is two weeks away from becoming a board-certified neurologist when she receives a strange package from her grandmother, who may—or may not—have just ended her life in a most flamboyant fashion. The mystery leads Hannah and her family on a surreal, funny, heartbreaking adventure back to their roots in South and North Korea and the forbidden Demilitarized Zone that divides them. This world premiere—with guest appearances by the ghost of Kim Jong-Il, subway mystics and a talking tiger—twists together creation myths and family histories to explore what it means to walk the edge between cultures. 

Hannah and the Dread Gazebo deals with a suicide and contains strong profanity.

The Thomas Theatre is outfitted with an elevator to the theatre level.

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is committed to accessibility. We recognize the needs of persons with disabilities and strive to make our facilities and productions accessible to all. OSF offers a variety of accommodations, outlined here.

Le faltan dos semanas a Hannah para ser neuróloga certificada por el estado cuando recibe un paquete muy raro de su abuela que pudiera – o no – haberse terminado la vida de una manera muy extravagante. El misterio les lleva a Hannah y a su familia en una aventura surrealista, graciosa y angustiada a sus raíces en las Coreas del Sur y del Norte y a la prohibida Zona Desmilitarizada que las divide. Esta nueva comedia alarmante – con apariciones especiales del fantasma de Kim Jong-Il, místicos de metro y un tigre que habla – retuerce los mitos de la creación con las historias familiares para explorar lo que significa caminar en el filo entre culturas.

Idoneidad Hannah y el espantoso quiosco trata un suicidio y contiene fuerte profanidad.

I have Japanese American friends whose parents were unjustly incarcerated during World War II and never breathed a single word about the Internment to their children. When the story was found out, the parents brushed it aside and said, “That was so long ago. Why bring it up?” Keeping family secrets is often made with the best of intentions. Parents may create cultural amnesia or new narratives for their children so that they will not suffer the same painful experiences. But history unfortunately repeats itself, and children will suffer when truths are not confronted.

Jiehae Park’s Hannah and the Dread Gazebo is the quintessential American drama about family, identity, secrets and legacy. Through the lens of a remarkable and gifted playwright, this comedic drama transports us to South Korea (and the in-between world of the Demilitarized Zone that separates it from neighboring North Korea) and to the furthest reaches of our theatrical imagination. Yet the play stays firmly grounded in familiar emotional complexities and truths, whether it’s grappling with grief over a death in the family, loneliness and the desire to connect, human endurance or unconditional love between parent and child.

You will find yourselves in each of Jiehae’s characters, as I have, characters who love each other and never acknowledge the obvious elephant in the room: a depressed mother. You will recognize the aching need to relate to family members, and to live and negotiate the subtexts of language to avoid conflict and hurt. You will discover the beauty and humor within these characters as they struggle to find the truth.

This play is also about immigration. In this unique point of view, Jiehae has given voice to immigrants and their children who return to their ancestral home from America, only to feel the same alienation and loneliness as they may have felt as new Americans. Hannah is undoubtedly a wise play; it begs us to consider the question of home. Where is home? What is home? Who is home? For me, each line, each scene of this play has been a wonderful journey home for me back to my native Singapore. I hope you will find your way back too

—Chay Yew