Transgender performer's 50 years on nightclub stages come to life in play

Korean society in the 1970s and 1980s was rife with violence and control masked as institutions and social order. At 16, the world saw her as a boy, but she already knew who she was. At a time when even the term “transgender” did not exist in common parlance, she performed on nightclub stages, singing and dancing in heavy makeup. She even underwent a risky, illicit gender-affirming surgery under only local anesthesia in a motel room. Her life was likely a relentless succession of discrimination and anger, difficult to imagine today. Yet even amid the violence and suffering that were commonplace at the time, she never lost faith in her choices. A one-person play portraying the fearless life of 69-year-old transgender performer Saek-ja, who spent five decades singing and dancing on nightclub stages, will meet audiences at the Seoul Performing Arts Festival (SPAF) on Oct. 15 and 16 at the small venue of Arko Arts Theater in Jongno District, Seoul. Titled “You Can't Make a Life Out of Not Getting Slapped in the Face," the play was first presented at the Feminism Theater Festival in 2