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” a play that has become highly popular with older audiences. (Photo by Chung Sang-young)

By Chung Sang-young, Senior Staff Writer

The “Dandelion Becomes the Wind” was on the stage at the Art One Theater in Seoul’s Daehangno at 3 p.m. on Saturday. The 300-seat audience was filled with middle aged people over the age of 40 and quite a few older couples in their 60s and 70s. The play is a sorrowful story of a widower who visits the grave of his wife to talk of stories of old and his current weariness. In particular, during the last scene when the main character, Ahn Jung-gi (played by Jo Jae-hyeon), cries, “Why did you die first, leaving me here?” many of the older men in the audience, forgetting for the moment their age or the need to keep up face, cried softly while holding their wives’ hands.

The audience heartily applauded the enthusiastic performances of middle-aged actors Jeong Bo-seok, 49, Jo Jae-hyeon, 46, and Lee Han-wi, 50, faces the audience knew from their work in films and TV.

“I could empathize more since it was a tale of my generation, and I could not hold back tears,” said one audience member, Yun Yeong-ok, 51, of Ansan in Gyeonggi Province. “It was even better because I was able to see the performance of Jo Jae-hyeon, an actor I usually like, right in front of me.”

The current run, which opened on Jan. 14, has recorded attendance rates of 97 percent and will run until May. Debuting in 2008, the show has drawn over 100,000 viewers.

Plays and musicals, which typically draw audiences in their 20s and 30s, are drawing more and more middle aged and senior audiences. The ticket purchasing power of the middle age bracket is not surprising, but with a growing number of productions targeting audiences in their 40s and over, - audiences who were baptized in cultural experiences - featuring middle-aged and elder actors in the main roles, a new cultural phenomenon is taking root.

Around 40 percent of the advanced bookings for the National Theater’s “March Snow,” which opens Friday, are over the age of 40. Veteran actors Jang Min-ho, 87, and Baek Seong-hee, 86, two of the top actors of the 20th century, have drawn intense interest from older audiences by taking the stage despite their advanced age.

With mothers and daughters driving the advanced bookings, the dramatic series “My Mother,” running at Seoul Arts Center from March 25 (Jeong Yeong-suk, Jeon Won-ju, Yeon Un-gyeong) and the traveling performance “My Mother and Three Days, Two Nights” (Gang Bu-ja, Jeon Mi-seon), will entertain audiences where about half the viewers will be over the age 50.

Of the advanced booking for the musical “Menopause,” which deals with the title subject, and the comedy “Nun Sensation,” 70 percent and 85 percent, respectively, have been by theatergoers over the age of 30. This is double the usual total of advanced purchases by those over 30, which is usually 30 percent. The actual number might be higher as middle-aged and older theatergoers are more used to ordering by phone than through the Internet.

Choe Yeo-jeong, the head of promotion for the long-run performance project The Best Plays, said, “Topics middle-aged and elder viewers can relate with are slowly being redeveloped, and with more and more veteran actors, they are familiar with from films and TV appearing on stage, it seems middle-aged and elder audiences will continue to grow.”

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