브레히트 특집 : 한국에서의 독일연극과 브레히트 수용 = German Theater and Brecht - reception in Korea

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

In the 20th century the introduction of German theater to Korea can be analyzed as have taken place in five distinct stages. The first stage lasted from 1923 through 1948 when the earliest introduction of German drama took place via Japan. The second stage began in 1949 and continued up until 1967. During this time specialists in the German literature departments of universities provided the Korean theater community with the independent import of German drama. The third stage started in 1968 with the formation of a theater company, the Stage for Freedom (SFF), exclusively dedicated to the performance of German drama. Along with the professional drama community SFF spent the next six years, until 1974, actively exploring the possibilities of this form of drama. In 1975, with the performance of The Chinese Wall by the SFF at the Arts Theater (Yesul Kukjang) in Seoul a new era of the creative acceptance of German theater began. This fourth stage lasted until 1982. The fifth stage began in 1983 and continues up until the present. During this time a more integrated and diverse number of German plays have been and continue to be presented. These include encore performances of successful plays as well as the introduction of issue-oriented works. The SFF presented in German Brecht`s The Marriage of a Citizen in 1974, Horrors of the Third Empire in 1976, The Good Person of Setzuan in 1978, Yesman and Noman in 1981, The Measures Taken in 1984 and after the ban on works by authors from communist countries was lifted in 1988 the group presented in Korean Exception and Custom. Brecht`s works thus had the advantage of being introduced in a direct form to Korean audiences. When one considers the social conditions and the sentiment of the Korean people in the 1990s a wide variety of Brecht`s works were introduced. We can distinguish this introduction process has having taken on various forms. Aside from the introductions the SFF provided, Brecht also came to Korea on other levels and through different routes. He came to be known in Korean theater circles as a new dramatic theorist. In the early 1970s beginning with director Ho Kyu and his Minye Theater Group and up until the present time Brecht`s performance artistry has been absorbed in a variety of ways. First, Brecht`s theory of narrative drama was accepted in a Korean theater community looking for contemporary forms in performance and a new dramatic aesthetic. Korean drama was undergoing a phase where the traditional was being utilized in a modern context and Brecht`s dramatic theories proved to be very useful. On the one hand, members of the Korean dramatic community who only had experience with American style theater had the idea that Brecht`s theories of narrative drama were merely a critical response to the existing social system and rejected them. On the other, artists who were outside the mainstream utilized Brecht`s theories in order to undertake a critical approach to inconsistencies in the social order themselves. This was the stage in which Brecht was accepted as socialist critic of the existing social order. Before the ban on Brecht`s works was lifted in 1988, his style of criticism had spread and left a distinct impression on forms of Korean drama popular at the time such as madang kuk, and the on-the-scene performances of the labor movement. After the 1990s Brecht`s works were absorbed Korean style and his ideas of social criticism began to attract less attention. At this point the interest in Brecht was not as a tool of ideology but in order to rediscover the beauties of form in theater. Therefore Brecht`s critical theories were first accepted as a rational for group cultural activities, as the impetus for collective action in response to social realities and as a method for participation. Then using the realistic structure and foundation of Korean theater as a point of departure, these theories were developed into a new drama aesthetic. In conclusion, German theater was a