We all live with a fatal invisible string called Death tying down our wrists. Paradoxically, even though we are aware of the existence of death, sometimes days are so painful that we curse ourselves to die. Isn't it remorseful to live a life recognizing the happiness of living and an eagerness to breathe only after we face the death? This play, conveying the message “Remember you must die,” livens up the desperate scenes of our time-limited lives through the actors’ words and actions. It also reminds the audience that our moments full of death wishes themselves show the liveness of longing for the good old days, and we are currently embracing the overwhelmingly noble lives. Let's reminisce about the spring performance <Memento Mori> presented by students from the School of Performing Arts and Media, College of Arts, Chung-Ang University, and follow up on the numerous streams of emotions embroidering the pages of lives.

Characters

Bi-a (Sadness): An elementary student grieving for her unappreciated self.

"This is a story I wrote crying, pressing down my pen letter by letter."

Dok-a (Loneliness): A high school student who feels fearful and lonely due to their uncertain future.

"But I found no place to live in this massively broad Seoul."

No-a (Madness): A soldier who is frightened by his first love's betrayal.

"I loved your poems on normal days, and I will leave this world delightfully after responding to your betrayal with a poem."

Han-a (Resentfulness): A writer who feels the shame of his limit.

"I thought I could change the world if I wrote well."

Mu-myeong (Nameless): An unknown artist.

"This story is not just the sad and grand things to be left."

Synopsis—Remembering the Lives That 'Had to' Die at an Effulgent Moment

           Poem, Novel, and Monologue. Five people silently gather around the scene, full of papers with notes scribbled down. Each text is their suicide note, and they all peek through the moments so ardent of dying that made themselves write the last will. From the sorrow of Bi-a for not completing 'Clementine' on her recorder in high school, to No-a's intense love to treachery, to the anxious artist who teaches a girl named 'Vanessa' how to play the 'Clementine' on a recorder. The complicated emotions retelling them they are living as a human are tangled in the well-written hand notes.

Remembering the Death by the Last Words

            "Please never forget my life and myself." Isn't death scary due to the fear of being forgotten? Frightened by one's existence disappearing in the vast space, afraid of a life considered as a speck of dust, and finally, for the lives not to be forgotten, people write. So why do they write? Even when one disappears into the universe, a trace of the writings remains. The play delivers the message that one's life will be remembered by the countless words one writes. The suicide notebook one writes continuously throughout their life means they had plenty of torment, but it also means there were moments they wanted to stay in people's memory. Through the reflections of the main characters writing the will note who wants to end their solitary life, this play dramatizes the 'will' as not the symbol of sadness, but the medium of memory. Recording every fiercely pleasant second of life with a letter, the characters tell audiences to earnestly cherish their finite and precious lives.

Days Full of Hatred Being Myself

               Life isn't always sweet. Feeling the condition of being mercilessly washed- up anxiety from our limit, one might recall the death. Likewise, Han-a felt a massive impotent feeling due to his limitation. When he visited South Sudan to get himself out of the slump, he met a little girl named 'Venessa' who had lost her family and the world. After realizing he could not help her, he felt as if he’d failed. And when the happiest time comes, and one feels the moment to be forever, death takes both fresh and terrifying moments. Mu-myeong, who does not exist in the world now, faces his pieces of anguish seconds and paradoxically finds them proud and valuable. With the arrival of death, all those moments 'I' hated my flawed self and wanted to disappear from the world, those young minds perish from the planet. Therefore, in every minute and second of loving, hating, and choking myself, every present counteracts fervently against the death waiting for us and cries for the dignity of life as best as possible. This play makes us think about the dark that would attack our world on the last day on earth and remember the days of hating ourselves to end up loving being ourselves.

"Memento Mori. Always remember you must die."

These are the words Venessa told Han-a, which are the letters CAH wants to say to our readers. Back in Ancient Rome, a general who won the battle shouted out this sentence to the soldiers, telling them not to be lifted up full of pride as a human who must eventually die. As long as we are born on this planet, our destination is fixed to death. Aren't we oblivious to the value of life, deluded by the distance of the particular arrival time? When we should say goodbye to being in the peaceful, stable moment that cannot be better, and when we rethink our lives, all those agonized seconds will definitely be charming. "Memento Mori" is a play that allows us to think of death differently. The monologues of actors who already know death tell us our lives are unique because we all live with the awareness of death. Let's love all the holy lives that were never worthless.

Place: Chung-Ang University Institute of Performing Arts and Film

Time: 2023. 02. 10~ 2023. 02. 12