링컨 신화의 재 조명: 수잔 로리 팍스의 「미국연극」에 나타난 수행성

Abstract

This paper aims at researching original and aesthetic dramatic methodology in The America Play by Suzan-Lori Parks. She proclaimed “+X” strategy,which is a new dramatic method used to make/rewrite African American history. Through The America Play, Parks exposes recorded and remembered American history by adapting elements of dialectical grammar/process of historical consistency, negation/deconstruction, reunion/forgiving, and flexible and plastic attributes of history. She sees African American history as something hidden under the veil of commonly purported as American history. She unveils the myth of Abraham Lincoln and performs deconstruction with her performative strategy. As Derrida calls “iterability”, a fundamental feature of performative, Parks includes the strategy of repetition and revises her work with three other strategies of performativity: perversion, Gestus,and alienation effects of epic theatre. With her dramatic aesthetics Parks challenges traditional theatre, which has approved close relation between text and performance, and anticipates deviant relation between them. As a repetitive strategy of playground game in the side show substitutes important historical event, Lincoln’s assassination, The play scorns the authority and sincerity of written American history while revealing this performativity stabilizes the ideology of history. The instability of African American history leads Parks to reject the linear narrative of traditional theatre and deconstruct the typical format of the oppressor/oppressed dichotomy. Through The America Play, Parks suggests a new model of relation between theatre and performativity, defines the traits of performativity as a deviation between its reference and meaning, and tries to achieve “Black and Whole” where independent cultural representation blossoms. The diverse presentation teaches that Black history has been hidden in the hole of the Great Whole of the History of America and needs to be put on display as beautiful, powerful,and filled with infinite variety.