In Korea all we had as presentations of the plays of Schiller were "Wilhem Tell" (William Tell) in 1960 by the National Theater Group (casting by Suh Hyang Suk) at Myung Dong Arts Theater, "Die Rauber" (The robbers, Kundo), (dierctor by Lee Jin Sun) a...
In Korea all we had as presentations of the plays of Schiller were "Wilhem Tell" (William Tell) in 1960 by the National Theater Group (casting by Suh Hyang Suk) at Myung Dong Arts Theater, "Die Rauber" (The robbers, Kundo), (dierctor by Lee Jin Sun) at the same theater in 1971 and "Wilhem Tell" with dierctor by Hur Kyu in 1975 by the National Theater. It is remarkable that at the first staging of William Tell the translation and the casting were done by the same person.
Perhaps the fact that Schiller is considered a difficult playwright is why studies on his works were reduced to some scholars in German literature, and theatrical performance and access by the general public were almost non-existent. However the case in Europe is different.
The works of two pillars of German classics, Goethe and Schiller, are like the ones of Shakespeare. In other words, they are excellent plays performed and do not fade away not only in German speaking countries but in several other countries over the world. His representative civic tragedy "Ka¨bale and Liebe" along with "Die Rauber", "Don Carlos", "Wallen Stein", Wilhem Tell, "Die Jungfrau von Orhaus" ("The maid of Orleans") and other plays are the most performed ones after after the works of Shakespeare, Moliere and Brecht in German speaking countries. According to performance statistics "Cabal and Love" is ranked as the seventh most performed play. Just by this numbers it is noted that Schiller is one of the most important playwright in German language.
Foreign classics as well as modern plays are largely performed in Korea however the representation of Schiller's works were minimal. Many problems of cultural distance arose while representing classics and translation works.
Obviously it is very difficult for an actor to portray on stage a play written in a totally different cultural context. Especially, unlike other literary works, plays are written to be performed. The mounting on a stage based only on the text lacking the complete comprehension of the playwright and the purpose of the play, would be useless, and it is also hard to expect excellence and a considerable degree of completeness of the play. When the degree of completeness of the original play and the performance of our actors make a perfect harmony then it is possible to say that the original value of a play has taken its place.
For the performance of "Cabal and Love", Mr. Frank Arnold, in charge of casting, from the Schiller Theater that specializes in performances of his plays and stage designer G. Rohde, were invited from Germany. They made observations on the playwright and the play, and for the imaging process of the play and especially in the case of Ferdinand the special characteristics of his aristocratic surrounding, habits, idiosyncrasy and the fact that Ferdinand is not just the son of any Prime Minister but a character with a number of characteristics of common knowledge and the ones that the playwright wanted to tell us. All these made us understand what the author wanted to say in, depth and the message contained in. It narrowed the cultural gap that existed in performing foreign classics and translated works. It allowed us to perform an outstanding play with the finesse of Gertrode and to bring with plenitude an impressive stage to our audience.
The absence of records and studies on this excellent classic play that were not performed any more resulted in the need to preserve and study it
In the case of "Cabal and love" due to the special characteristics of performing arts, the lack of illustrative information constitute a great hardship. Fortunately the recorded indications of casting by Frank Arnold (who was in charge of casting and the script for the rehearsal) was the base for the work of actors like Chang Min Ho, Paik Sung Hui and other actors of the National Theater Group. All these constituted an excellent material of research and a great help for the investigation.
In the Introduction of this thesis the objective was placed at the main character of Ferdinand of "Cabal and Love" and the purpose of the investigation as well as the scope of the method to be used. In Chapter 2 the characteristics of the playwright in the context of the times he lived and the essence of a civic tragedy were identified and arranged thereto.
In Chapter 3 Schiller and his plays especially "Cabal and love" were studied and the characterization of Ferdinand are included. In Chapter 4 a detailed study of Acts 4 and 5, the most important Acts where Ferdinand appears and an analysis of the text, centered on acting, is included. Based on the notes of Director Frank Arnold and the acting guidelines, the formation of the character on the stage is arranged and annotated.
In Annex I stage arrangements, customs, make-up and other supports to the role of Ferdinand is presented to be the basis of the building of the character and in Annex Ⅱ a recollection of reviews on the performance is gathered.
It is certain that so far research and analysis in depth of performances done in a single function are minimal and there was no preservation of details of studies done on said single performances. To overcome this situation during the preparation of this thesis a complete research was done entirely, but due to the limited space it is regrettable that only the Acts 4 and 5 are included in this thesis. It is planned to publish a separate volume of Annex covering all the Acts from 1 to 5 after the presentation of the present thesis.
This thesis intends to provide a help to future students of acting and people related to performing arts with an analysis of the entire process to stage a play to the detailed completion of characters.