The traditional theater art of old Korea developed chiefly within the plebeian culture. Despite the lack of proper facilities and its condemnation by Korea’s intellectual elites during the Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1910), traditional Korean theater developed rapidly until the end of the 19th century. Traditional actors addressed their art to the lower class and exposed the pressing problems of contemporary Korea, but the gravity of the message was mitigated by a satirical, ribald and sometimes downright iconoclastic style. A shift in awareness occurred only in the beginning of the 20th century, when Japanese ‘new school’ (shimpa) theater groups started coming to the Korean Peninsula. They presented popular adaptations of famous Japanese sentimental novels and family sagas addressing the plays to the Japanese residents. Performances were primarily meant for the Japanese residents, but the Koreans were allowed to watch them, even though they were discouraged, at least in the first period, by the foreign theatrical convention and language. The first, and very staunch supporter of the Japanese ‘new school’ theater was Im Sŏng-gu (1887–1921). Together with his group Hyŏkshindan (‘innovation’) established in the beginning of the second decade of the 20th century, he started presenting the Korean audience simplified and adapted versions of Japanese shimpa plays, thus developing a new theater genre and initiating the development of the Korean modern theater. The main aim of this article is to describe the process of adapting the Japanese theater: to show which elements were borrowed from Japanese theater groups, e.g. the concept of onnagata, the theatrical convention, literary sources, tachimawari scenes, melodramatic acting style; to present achievements of Im Sŏng-gu who had to overcome cultural differences between Japan and Korea, political and social barriers and the aesthetic taste of the Korean audience; and finally to point out the consequence of Im Sŏng-gu’a artistic activity.
This article is an attempt to reconstruct the process of development of modern Korean dramaturgy, which was initiated at the beginning of the 20th century. It was a result of rapid social, cultural and artistic transformations faced by Korea in the first decades of the previous century. Korean public’s expectations increased when the first institutionalised theatres were created and Japanese and Western theatres became more popular. People expected thorough changes in theatre and exerted pressure on theatre managements and theatre groups representing four main theatrical genres: classic opera ch’ang-guk, theatre of ‘new school’ (shinp’a), ‘new drama’ (shin-gŭk), and popular entertaining theatre (taejung-gŭk). Korean theatres, trying to meet the needs of their audiences and survive in the unstable conditions of occupied Korea (1910–1945), used a variety of methods to solve one of the most serious and severe problems, which was the shortage of scenic material. The article discusses the strategies of Korean theatre groups and their artistic achievements. It also provides information about the theatre repertoire and the list of plays staged in the first four decades of the 20th century.
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