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Do you know what “The Little Mermaid”, “The Match Girl”, “The Ugly Duckling”, and “Red Shoes” have in common? The works are by Hans Christian Andersen. He began to write fairy tales in the 1840s, and nearly 200 years later, his works are still loved by many children and adults. However, do you know that Anderson who gave birth to many such masterpieces had difficulty in writing fairy tales? Let’s look into his life and how his fairy tales were born.
Before talking about his fairy tales, we need to look into the writer Anderson first. Even though he went to Copenhagen dreaming of becoming a stage actor, his writing was a mess because he wasn’t educated properly because of his impoverished upbringing. So, the chief of the theater company rejected his scripts every time. But thanks to Jonas Collin, a member of the Danish Parliament, who recognized his talent as a writer, Anderson began to write poetry. With the aid of Collin, Andersen was able to study at Copenhagen University and published the “Improviser” which is an autobiography that led to lots of favorable reviews. After that, Anderson continued to write fairy tales.
Since we’ve now learned about Andersen, the main character of this musical, it’s time to explain a bit more about the musical Hand of God. There are only three characters in the musical. ‘Hans’, the writer of fairy tales and main character, ‘Collin’ who made the opportunity for Hans to succeed as a writer, and ‘A girl’ who helped Hans to write fairy tales continuously.
The musical begins with the scene of Hans in pain because writing fairy tales is so difficult and feels like a nightmare for him. After a dark change, the full-out development proceeds. The first scene is the scene where Collin is happy to hear Han’s publishing news. As I mentioned before, Hans already became a writer with Collin’s assistance, and he is publishing his works getting around many countries. He gains confidence from positive reactions of “An Improviser”, the first step as a writer, but he also loses confidence due to unexpected hypercriticism of the book including his feelings from travel notes. At that time, a girl who is not only an imaginary character Hans makes but also the main character of every work emerges and helps Hans not to grieve greatly. Of course, Collin, the helper, and reader who really likes Hans’s writings, aids Hans to write fairy tales all right. Finally, “The Ugly Duckling” is born.
The reaction to “The Ugly Duckling” is almost positive, so Hans strives to write fairy tales. However, the post saying Hans’s mother passed away is processed suddenly. To make matters worse, as the crush of Hans, Collin, gets married to a woman, it turns out that Collin likes only Hans’s writings. Hans loses his family, love, and romance in a moment, and he feels exhausted with writing. However, the girl who can be reborn only by writing doesn’t sympathize with his sadness and pushes him to write fairy tales. The tragedies “A Match Girl”, “The Snow Queen”, and “The Red Shoes” with his glumness gain great reactions paradoxically, and “The Little Mermaid” which involves his desperation of broken heart also gets explosive reactions.
I would like to explain more about “The Little Mermaid” that was described in more detail than the three works mentioned previously and a girl’s passionate acting was so impressive. As I mentioned before, Hans has a crush on Collin who glories in being able to publish a book together. Not because he likes to spend time with him, but because he likes Hans’s books more than anything else about Hans. After he receives a wedding invitation from Collin, Hans develops empathy for the little mermaid who can’t convey her mind to a prince as she loses her voice instead of getting legs because Hans thinks that he seems not to tell his words to Hans. Even though, Hans who becomes mature by writing “The Little Mermaid” strongly requests reconciliation with Collin, they maintain a great relationship just like before. Also, the girl feels satisfied with becoming the loved character through “The Little Mermaid”. The musical ends with a happy ending with three characters who encounter happiness in their positions.
So far, I have explained the plot of Hand of God. The most impressive thing to me is that there are only three characters and ‘the girl’ is the character who doesn’t exist in reality but is the most helpful to Hans. In addition, “The Little Mermaid” is a fairy tale that describes the love of the opposite sex, but it is also surprising that Andersen, who has a homosexual disposition, is born after he fails the crush. Therefore, I recommend the musical Hand of God which gives various emotions by telling the backgrounds of the fairy tales and Andersen’s life which is less known than the fairy tales. At last, I am going to finish the article adding the reporter’s appreciation review in part.
I could enjoy the musical Hand of God enough to know the main character’s name only because its material is the famous fairy tale writer Hans Andersen. It is impressive to connect the curves of Andersen's life to the sad ending and the happy ending of the original fairy tale. The musical number Andersen sings when he utilizes his talent with his supporter is so active and lively that we can compare Andersen who doesn’t get results with ‘the baby swan who will spread wings’. However, the musical number of Andersen who had to write the fairy tales without being sorrowful about the death of his mother is literally a prisonic fairytale itself. Thanks to such a composition, I get to look at Andersen as ‘a person’ whom I had only known previously from a biography. < Copyright © The Gachon Herald All rights reserved > |
