재담과 만담, ‘비-의미’와 ‘진실’의 형식 - 박춘재와 신불출을 중심으로 -

Abstract

Bak Chunjae was a so distinguished as to be a royal singer at 15-year-old during the Korean empire, and also had earned a national reputation with his recording albums. He was good at Jaedam. And Shin Bulchul was an inventor and a representative of Mandam in the 1930’s. He entered Shinpakuk(新派劇) company at 18-year-old, and so he knew the reality and difficulties in the theatrical circles of Chosun very well. Actually, Mandam was the result or the solution to the problems he experienced after ten years of continuous trials and failure in theatre. Existing studies have emphasized the continuity between the two genres or their common traditional elements while acknowledging the modernity of Mandam. Many scholars insist that Mandam was close to the tradition of the storytelling called ‘Kangdam’(講談), or the traditional comedy called ‘Sohakzihee’(謔謔之戱)) in the Chosun Dynasty. They usually emphasized the fact that Jaedam and Mandam basically told a story and were composed of conversation(dialogue). In this paper, however, I would like to pay attention to the difference between the performativity of the two genres rather than the continuity between the two, departing from the previous studies which emphasize the development process from 'story tradition’ to 'modern performance' or from ‘traditional performance’ to ‘modern performance’. I will examine the peculiarity of Jaedam, which was a very important quality in its actual performance but were given little attention in criticism at that time. Son Taedo(孫泰度) argues that Bak Chunjae’s Jaedam was based on traditional 'Chang'(唱) or ‘Ka’(歌) which means ‘song’. I will go further and make a more specific argument that Jaedam was a performance art expressively presenting ‘non-meaning’language. In order to do so, I will analyze that Bak Chunjae's <Byungshin Jaedam>(病身才談, The Jokes of the Disabled). However, Shin Bulchul criticized Jaedam that its ‘non-meaning’ elements were nonsensical. I will argue that Shin Bulchul’s Mandam ultimately aimed at 'meaning' and the 'truth of the modern life' by using the art of the spoken language, not song. And I will examine this in the example of <the generous husband)(관대한 남편)>. In the process, I will discuss what was lost and gained in the crucial time of the colonial modernity.