SYNOPSIS

Laundry follows the lives of working-class neighbors in a very poor hillside neighborhood in Seoul.

Nayoung, a 27-year-old woman, moved to Seoul five years ago, dreaming that she could work hard, save money, and eventually go to college. In reality, she found herself living in a small, run-down room on top of a hill, working at a bookstore.

Solongo, a Mongolian man who majored in Russian literature back in Ulaanbaatar, also came to Seoul five years ago on a work visa. Now undocumented, he works in a factory to support his family and his younger brother, who also hopes to attend college. When Nayoung first moved in, Solongo noticed her right away and fell in love at first sight. Though they live in adjacent houses, they share access to the same rooftop for drying laundry, each with their own clothesline. Solongo tries to talk to her, but Nayoung keeps her distance.

At the factory, Solongo and his friend Michael from the Philippines hear Korean curse words shouted at them before they can learn anything else — a reflection of their harsh working conditions. Solongo is mistreated by his supervisor, paid less than promised, and threatened with deportation.

Meanwhile, Nayoung faces problems at work. Her boss is chauvinistic and skirts the line of sexual harassment. After a longtime employee is fired for quietly pointing out accounting irregularities, Nayoung defends her and is punished by being transferred to a remote warehouse. That night, she drinks heavily with coworkers.

On her way home, she stumbles in the street. Solongo sees her and gently calls out — and for the first time, Nayoung approaches him with warmth, letting her guard down completely. But the moment breaks when she realizes what she’s doing, especially as Solongo’s landlord passes by. The landlord picks a fight, and Solongo, fearing both police involvement and deportation, silently endures being slapped and kicked to protect Nayoung. That moment of quiet sacrifice draws them closer.

Nayoung’s landlady is a sharp-tongued but deeply caring older woman who lives with her severely disabled daughter. One night, when the daughter becomes ill, Heejung’s mom — another tenant — helps rush her to the emergency room. The next day, the landlady and Heejung’s mom talk with Nayoung, who breaks down in tears. They comfort one another, and in a moment of solidarity, sing about drying their tears like laundry hanging in the sun. When Solongo passes by, they hand him and Nayoung the laundry hamper to take to the rooftop — a quiet gesture to give the new couple some time together.

In the final scenes, Heejung’s mom moves to a better-located tenement. The landlady and her daughter reunite with her estranged son and begin living together. Nayoung moves in with Solongo, who finally says aloud a word he never learned in the factory — love.


REVIEW

Laundry was originally written as a graduation project — both the script and lyrics — by Choo Min-joo at Korea National University of Arts. Since then, it has become one of Korea’s longest-running original musicals, now in its 30th production and celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2025.

I first attended the show in 2008, shortly after a visit to Seoul National University Hospital for a relatively minor but anxiety-inducing condition. After a follow-up appointment in the hospital, I wandered across to Marronnier Park, not ready to go home. I often saw plays in Daehakro, and that day, almost by instinct, I walked into Laundry.

That performance made me almost forget about myself. The weight I carried — the fear, the uncertainty — felt suddenly small in comparison. Laundry didn’t present easy answers. It laid out problem after problem: discrimination, poverty, migrant labor, medical hardship, family obligations, job insecurity, and social invisibility. And it didn’t resolve them. That’s what struck me the most. Everything stayed unresolved — and yet, I felt comforted.

Laundry is addressing issues of the Korean society in the early 21st century.

1. Urban poverty and the cost of survival in Seoul

Nayoung’s backstory reflects the broken promises of upward mobility in Korea’s capital. She came with dreams of education, but instead is trapped in low-wage work and inadequate housing. The tenement setting and hilltop rooms mirror the urban marginalization of working-class youth and single women who cannot afford better conditions.

2. Immigrant labor and discrimination

Through Solongo, The show directly addresses the struggles of migrant workers: exploitation, racism, poor working conditions, and legal vulnerability (undocumented status). The use of profanity as the first migrant workers hear sharply criticizes how Korea receives and mistreats foreign labor — a linguistic detail that encapsulates systemic abuse.

3. Gender inequality and workplace harassment

Nayoung’s experience in the bookstore, including sexual harassment, retaliatory punishment, and moral courage to stand up for another worker, reflects pervasive issues in Korean workplaces. The lack of recourse and her forced transfer demonstrate the consequences faced by workers who resist authority.

4. Invisible caregiving burdens

The landlady’s hidden life — raising a severely disabled adult daughter alone — underscores the absence of public safety nets for caregivers, particularly elderly women. Her wish to outlive her daughter is a poignant, heartbreaking testament to the isolation and fear borne by Korea’s invisible caregivers.

5. Divorce, middle-aged loneliness, and informal social bonds

Heejung’s mom, a divorced woman referred to only by her role, represents women stripped of identity. Her boyfriend wants her to move into his home and live with his children and elderly mother. She reveals that she abandoned her own child after the divorce — likely having lost custody due to unstable income. Yet despite her own emotional burden, she becomes part of an intergenerational support system with Nayoung and the landlady.

6. Emotional resilience through everyday rituals

Laundry as metaphor is central: washing, drying — these mundane acts become a stand-in for survival, cleansing, and emotional release. The rooftop becomes a liminal space for both solitude and connection — an elevated site where silent emotional exchanges occur (Solongo watching Nayoung; the scene where they carry the laundry hamper together upstairs and hang the laundry together; Solongo and Nayoung’s life together).

7. Love, as something learned and hard-won

Solongo’s arc — from silent longing to the final utterance of love — is not just romantic, but symbolic of humanization amid dehumanizing conditions. The show suggests love is not given, but earned through courage, vulnerability, and persistence — and in this case, it transcends language and culture.

Laundry did more than entertain — it quietly addressed more social issues than any politician or civil rights campaign I’ve seen. The first time I watched it, I wasn’t just moved — I was overwhelmed. It left me sunken in thought, surrounded by the very problems we’re all still trying to live through. And yet, it gave solace. Not through resolution, but through recognition — by naming the weight that so many silently carry.

Korean society tries quite hard to reduce discrimination and amend laws to provide better policies for the underprivileged and people with disabilities. It became mandatory to attend lectures on discrimination and sexual harassment at work. There are still problems of similar nature, but society has begun to recognize them and take action.

As producer Choo Min-joo explains (https://brunch.co.kr/@d822c61036434b8/13), Laundry was born from a desire to gather the stories of people often overlooked: Solongo, representing the lives of migrant workers; the landlady who sacrifices everything for her family, from doing all her unfaithful husband’s laundry after his stroke to her disabled daughter’s care; Heejung’s mom who survives night shifts; and Nayoung, who came to Seoul with dreams and now struggles through each day — these are all lives we can easily find around us. But no one seems to care. In a world changing so rapidly, I wanted to capture the stories of neighbors pushed to the margins. That’s how Laundry came to be — by gathering these fragments of life into one place. I believed that showing how they endure, how they keep going in their own way, might offer real comfort to the audience.

Her words reminded me why the show stayed with me all these years. The characters in Laundry don’t fix their lives. They don't triumph over adversity in the way a musical typically promises. But they endure. They persist. They live, with all their quiet strength, and by naming their pain — they offer solace. Not just to each other, but to all of us watching.

Even those who appear better off are still trapped in hardship. The landlady, for instance, owns a tiny hillside house barely divided into a few rented rooms — likely with shared bath and toilet — and spends her days caring for her severely disabled daughter. Her sharp tongue conceals a life of quiet desperation, haunted by the fear of dying before her child. The landlord who assaults Solongo has more power, but wields it with cruelty — a petty tyrant shaped by prejudice and perhaps his own insecurity. Only the bookstore owner seems to profit without remorse, exploiting others from a small position of authority. In Laundry, no one is truly free. Everyone is worn thin — by poverty, aging, displacement, caregiving, or exploitation. Even those with something to hold onto are still, in their own way, les misérables.

Yet Laundry is far from a bleak show. It’s filled with energy, humor, and hope. Solongo’s love for Nayoung is revealed in a moving solo, sung while three actors in the background sip beer in slow motion, with Nayoung frozen in time — a moment suspended in longing. For this 30th production, a brief dreamlike sequence imagines the two of them free and happy in Mongolia, a place where burdens seem to lift. Even scenes of oppression are staged with wit: the bookstore owner’s petty tyranny becomes a comic number, with backup dancers turning his speech into a rhythm the audience can clap along to. And the show tries to stay current. For instance, the bus has a T-money reader for transportation cards, and the exact minimum wage of 2025 is mentioned. Nayoung’s age, 27, is now based on international age convention rather than Korean age. Only the phones seem outdated — perhaps suggesting the characters can’t afford newer models — and there are even payphones, now a near-extinct relic.

When Nayoung breaks down crying before the landlady and Heejung’s mom, the scene transforms. The women comfort her with a hopeful song, waving large white laundry over her head, soap bubbles drifting through the air — a moment of cleansing, resilience, and renewed strength. And in the final scene, the whole cast watches as Solongo hands a flower bouquet to Nayoung, proposing to her. It’s a celebration, closing not with a resolution of society’s problems, but with the warmth of connection. Writer and lyricist Choo Min-joo has said she wanted to show that even in the midst of hardship, people can find meaning and light. What Laundry suggests — gently but insistently — is that we carry on not because the world is kind, but because someone, somewhere, might love us. After all, we are human. We need one another.

I did not count all my attendances, but it is over 20 times. When I went to Seoul National University Hospital and felt somewhat lonely, I walked into the show. Now I go to the show once or twice a year, sometimes feeling less, other times much more. The last show I attended in May 2025 left me moved unusually deeply. They changed the blocking and subplots, which did not impact the main theme. It worked well either way, but as a repeat attender, I found little gems in recognizing the changes. I ask myself: have any of these people gained better social support after 20 years? What must society do to become a better place? And most of all — being underprivileged does not mean being unhappy. People carry the weight of their lives and still manage to live, and even find happiness.