『비네가 톰』의 노래 전략과 여성역사 다시쓰기

Abstract

Caryl Churchill is considered a leading British female playwright who has radically and consistently tried to dramatize social issues in the context of history, class, and politics through new and experimental theatrical styles beyond the traditional theatrical forms. As her first socialist feminist play, Vinegar Tom was completed by cooperating with the Monstrous Regiment, a socialist and feminist theatre group, which was mainly interested in the political orientation and theatrical techniques of Bertolt Brecht. The play consists of 21 scenes with 7 songs. The scenes show the past events in which socially and economically deserted women who were condemned as witches under patriarchal social norms. The songs by the female performers in modern dresses interrupt a natural flow of the consequent scenes so as to allegorically criticize the history of women distorted by a male-dominated perspective. The female performers play the roles as both singers and characters. Such crossing roles of singers out of the characters produce the alienation effect by which the audiences are induced on purpose to compare and contrast the past and the present in respect to the oppression of women. The songs containing the feminist themes connect concretely social prejudice and abuse of the witches in the 17th century with the issues of socialist feminism the present women still experience as oppression. The feminist themes that the songs contain are of the female body socially regarded as a tool of reproduction, nonsensical social perspectives on the roles of female gender, and slave-like domestic situation of some married women. The themes of the songs are also expanded into other realms of historical oppressionbeyond feminist concerns in regard to lunatics, blacks, and Jews. In Vinegar Tom Caryl Churchill progressively tries to rewrite existing history from a feminist perspective by means of the Brechtian techniques of songs accompanying an alienation effect. It is intended for the audiences to reflect on their own past and present conditions in history. As the song lyrics suggest, our awakening alliance will bring about the new vision of social change full of progress and hope by looking into the relationship between individuals and society, and making correction of any historical errors.