삶/ 일상극, 그 경계의 퍼포먼스 -박근형의 초기 소극장 연극

Abstract

This thesis attempted to examine the theatre of Park Keun hyung, one of the most productive and provocative contemporary Korean writer-directors, mostly in terms of ‘performance theory’ such as ‘in-betweenness of life and theatre’, performativity, materiality, improvisation, process, metonymy, and audience's reception. Also I tried to view Park's theatre with sociological and anthropological aspects. 1. Theatre as an extension of life. Park understood art/life or theatre/life not as separated things , which means he considered theatre as an contiguities of real life. He portrayed the everyday lives of poor people, that include the very realities of the theatre people and actors around him. Aside from the affluences of the commodities in the post-industrial society, the poverty made their lives and activities very simple but strong. And that simple but strong activities could carry a possibility of performance and performativity. 2. Very small theatre space and the resurrection of materiality Park dealt with everyday lives of poor people with a hyper-natural detail and mostly due to the economic difficulties, he produced his plays in a very small (about 50 seats) and poorly equipped theatre stage. Usually his play need only a bare room with very simple and few things such as a small table for eating and a blanket. So he doesn't have to ‘represent’ a room but he used a small stage just as a room in the play, a continuation of real life. So the bare room and a few things exist between ‘represented space’ and ‘real space’, which permit the actors and the audience a free sense of materiality and performativity, 3. Actng as a revelation of actor's real life Park treats the member of his theatrical company as his family. He spent more time in talking and drinking with his actors than in rehearsal to know them better. He believed that acting is to reveal the actor himself and to talk about himself. According to Schechner's 7 steps of performance, his efforts can rather be considered as a workshop stage than as a ordinary rehearsal process. 4. Theatre of process-collective and performative writing. Park does not seek to make his play as a complete art-work. He rather enjoys the process working with his actors. He asks the actors to write about himself or to improvise during the workshop, then he later lace them into a producing text. The text won't be completed until the first night or he constantly rewrite the text after the show has started. He and his actors connects scenes not with logic or with the mechanism of metaphor but with impulses, whims, and with the sense of metonymy, a theory of uncertainty and contiguity. 5. Audience response-a cracked collectivity Beside poverty, Park's play talks about the family relationship. The way Park talk to his audience is complex, double-minded and meta-narrative. On the surface, his plays are calm and humorous, but underneath the surface, the audience find the cracked collectivity, a collapse of family relationship, especially a parody of patriarchal system. His messages are not fixed or completed yet. So the audience can participate and make the meaning of the play with Park and his actors.