A dozen charred beams blacken the white carpet, arranged in a rectangle in the center of the stage. There is darkness all around, in which several wooden boxes can be seen, as if they survived a shipwreck. Andrea Pizzalis distinguishes in his scenography two spaces, two zones that are destined to never meet, like worlds separating the dead from the living. It is on this impassable border that we place Daria Deflorian With What a terrible pain – love. In this new adaptation of Han Kang’s work, the director tries to gradually open up a dialogue with the missing man.
© Christophe Reynaud de Lages / Avignon Festival
From the first words, it was the tone of the narrative that Daria Deflorian and Monica Piseddu. With their two voices, they share the narrative of the plot, reflecting the dialogue between the two main characters. At the request of her Inseong, who is wounded and hospitalized, Kyungha travels to Jeju Island in southern Korea to take care of her friend’s bird, who is left alone in a cage. Due to the accident, Kyungha will not arrive on time. When she finally reaches the house, the bird is dead and a snowstorm has left the village without power. A critical situation that in the novel creates a gap between reality and hallucinations.
Memories and visions
Throughout the narrator’s introspection, memories and visions surface. A joint creative project that has been frozen for years and traces of which seem to be washed away on the set, Inseong suddenly appearing in great shape when she should have been in the hospital, the bird returning to its cage, more alive than ever. The strange atmosphere that Daria Deflorian is trying to create What a terrible pain – love. To do this, he first distinguishes between what is real and what is uncertain. Enclosed in the very heart of the scene, the play space dedicated to the tangible seems to be crushed by the weight of the shadow omnipresent on the periphery.
There, in the gray night, a silhouette stands out, wandering like the ghost of an unresolved story. At first he was silent Anna Coppola revolves around the other two performers, disappearing or reappearing without being threatening or reassuring. She is assigned the role of the one who will turn a big story into a small one. This ghost is that of Inseong’s mother, a witness and survivor of the Jeju Island massacres in the late 1940s, who once broke a taboo by telling the unthinkable.
Complex weave
© Christophe Reynaud de Lages / Avignon Festival
The dramatic lines multiply as well as the degrees of reality, creating a complex interweaving that Daria Deflorian cannot give sufficient force to. An uncertain step, a quick glance and an echo of a voice create an unconvincing ghost, but the only figure here capable of building bridges between the two worlds. The bias of the narrative, which destroys all idea of the spectacle, establishes a sluggish rhythm, for which the desire for sensitivity does not provide sufficient relief.
What remains are tens of thousands of bodies buried under Jeju Island, fearfully emerging in the not-quite-approved codes of documentary theater. The files, bursting at the seams with names, dig sites and evidence, eventually invade the scene like a tide of death into the space of life. Constant pain is very specific.
What a terrible pain – love in accordance with Impossible goodbyes de Han Kang
Carmelite Monastery – Avignon Festival
From July 13 to July 18, 2026
Duration 1 hour 30 minutes
Tour
From 22 to 26 October 2026 – ERT Teatro Nazionale – Bologna.
From October 29 to November 8, 2026 – Teatro Piccolo, Melato Studio – Milan.
From November 26 to December 6, 2026 – Teatro Valle, Roman Theater.
With Anna Coppola, Daria Deflorian, Monica Piseddu
FromImpossible goodbyes de Han Kang
Dramaturgy and directing – Daria Deflorian
Project together with Monica Piseddu and Andrea Pizzalis.
Collaborative dramaturgy – Eric Vautrin
Scenography and assistant director – Andrea Pizzalis.
Light – Julia Pastore
Son: Emanuele Pontecorvo
Costumes – Ettore Lombardi
Technical Manual – Enrico Maso
Artistic Council – Attilio Scarpellini
Collaboration in the field of drama – Nikolai Palmieri and Blue Sylla
French translation and subtitles – Federica Martucci
English translation and subtitles – Prescott Studio Italy