식민지 초기 서울의 흥행시장과 연예계의 형성

Abstract

This paper studied the formation of Hŭng-hang (entertainment business), with a focus on the theater industry, and the historical composition of the entertainment industry by examining relevant data on the formation of the theater capital in the Seoul area from 1905 to 1917, the scale of the Hŭng-hang industry in theaters, the management of entertainment groups, and the entertainment tax. Based on an analysis of the economic situation during the late Korean Empire, this paper conducted a profitability analysis on the early theater industry by analyzing accounting documents of theaters from the Korean-American Electric Company. Next, this study examined the Hŭng-hang capitalists involved with the Korean popular theaters and their progress from the late Korean Empire to the early 1910s, to discuss the early scale of the Hŭng-hang capital and the distinctive characteristics of each theater. It was around 1913 when the theater entertainment business was stabilized and the commercial capitalists began to devote themselves to the theater industry. It was after theatre companies specializing in old and new productions were created in 1912 and the theater business changed by focusing on space rental. The managers who had been in charge of the professional theater companies specializing in old and new productions became to play the role of professional show proprietors. This paper focused on the life of Park Seungpil, who was active in Kwangmudae from 1912 to 1914, and his strategies of using mass media to examine how the early entertainment industry was formed. After 1910, the Japanese theater capital advanced to the theater industry, thereby restructuring the industry to be dominated by colonial capital. The entertainment tax imposed as a part of a special tax on Gyeongseong-bu in 1914 was advantageous for large theaters and relatively disadvantageous for rental organizations. As the motion picture industry, which was dominated by Japanese capital, and the large theater business gained momentum, the Korean public theaters, with their little capital, were unable to invest in the theater industry after their business was suspended. Instead, the increased demand for popular theaters in Seoul induced by the economic boom around the First World War and the opening of the Joseon Competitive Exhibition was only reserved to a select few theaters, most of which were Japanese theaters. The colonial reorganization of the Hŭng-hang capital was often identified as the primary reason behind the dissolution of the new and old groups and the stagnation of the Korean theater industry after the mid-1910s.