이윤택의 역사극 그리고 글쓰기-굿—「혜경궁 홍씨」를 중심으로

Abstract

In historical dramas, historical events are the materials that serve as motifs to develop the story. In such cases, history is chosen as material because people want to present generally chosen historical events from a new perspective or need materials that are both interesting and widely known. Lee Yuntaek sees history as the object of deconstruction and reconstitution for interpretation. It is an attempt for him to reveal violence, itself, throughout history and resolve it in a theatrical process rather than being restricted to an event in the past. In Crown Princess Hong, the author employs an approach of summoning various figures that abetted the unfair treatment of Crown Prince Sado and incited him to kill himself into recollections and dreams. In the work, recollection is a method of characters presenting the history of the past in the present; and also, the author presenting the past-related discourse at the present. Lee finds history as in the violent past. He unfolds a “dream” on stage in the form of a nightmare and summons the past into the present to summon the violence committed in the past to the present and face it. He faces violence through its deconstruction and reconstitution. Based on the premise that there is still violence present in every aspect of daily life and a force trying to justify it, Lee unfolds the disorganized world of recollections and dreams on stage, which is not restricted to the relations between Crown Prince Sado and King Yeongjo and means that all of the past in modern history that he went through was violent. He calls figures of the past on stage and makes them disclose unknown facts that are essential in order to reproduce the tragic history of man. Here, the ghost is not to tell something, coming from the outside. It is what the character experiences with her body as it is demonstrated by Crown Princess Hong. “Events” will unfold in which characters are subjected to violence and time of violence. The author highlights the fact that any group can face an unbearable crisis due to violence committed in daily life. The present study examined the ways that Lee Yun-taek contemplated over the amplified and overlapping modern history of violence from the troubled days of Korean people during the Japanese rule through April 3rd Massacre in Jeju and Korean War to May 18 Democratic Resistance that he faced in the historical drama of Crown Princess Hong.