Literature Compass 9/8 (2012): 560569, 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2012.00896.

A Mad Mother and Her Dead Son: The Impact of the

Irish Theatre on Modern Korean Theatre
Yuh. J. Hwang*
Trinity College Dublin

Abstract

During the colonial period (19101945), Korean intellectuals introduced Irish artists and their
works to the public through newspapers and magazines. Because of the political similarity between
Ireland and Korea at that time, these intellectuals considered Ireland as an ideal to emulate. The
impact of the Irish dramatic movement on modern Korean theatre was significant, in that it provided a direction for Korean intellectuals involved in establishing modern theatre. One of the
most famous modern Korean plays from this period, Yu Chijins A Mud Hut was indirectly influenced by Irish playwright Sean OCasey whose trilogy is based on Dublins working class. The
work of another Korean playwright, Ham Sedoks Sanhuguri, was indebted to the works of J.M.
Synge, whose plays deal with Irish peasants. In their plays, Yu Chijin and Ham Sedok depict the
miserable lives of some common Korean people as realistically as they can, by imitating the writings of Sean OCasey and J.M. Synge. The main motif that appears in their works is that of a
mad mother and her dead son. In Yu Chijins play, this motif is represented by the land as an
absent space. In Ham Sedoks play, it is illustrated by the sea as an absolute space of fate. The
mother figure in both plays is presented as a languid, defeatist and self-pitying figure who is confronted by the colonial reality represented by her dead son. Through these images, the future is
portrayed as hopeless. This paper attempts to shed a light on a particular strand of modern Korean
plays and their emergence under the influence of Irish theatre in the early twentieth century.

1. Ireland as an Ideal
During the Japanese colonial rule (19101945) of Korea, modernisation was synonymous
with Westernisation as a vehicle for overcoming the world view centering on Japan and
China. Theatre, also, was no exception in the insatiable appetite for modernisation. The
tradition of Korean theatre such as Talchum and Pansori1 had been ignored until the
renaissance of the tradition in the middle of the 1970s, and the folk theatre movement
grounded on the traditional theatre Madang-kuk, in the 1980s.
Especially in the 1920s and 1930s, Korean intellectuals introduced Irish drama to the
public in the form of works by playwrights such as Augusta Lady Gregory, John Millington Synge, Edward Plunkett, Lord Dunsany, and Sean OCasey. Irelands political and
social circumstances were discussed too in magazines and newspapers2 (Jang 202). During
this period, 12 Irish plays were translated and nine Irish plays were staged3 (Jang, Irish
156). Due to such activities, Ireland was considered an Ideal since it was thought that
Korea and Ireland resembled each other closely. The similarity between the two countries,
which lay in their tragic colonial histories, was responsible for the melancholic sentiment
shared by the works of both countries. In this regard, the status of Ireland as a Free State
(1922) rendered to Korean intellectuals a bright hope that Korea could also gain its independence from Japan- just as Ireland had from England. The Irish Dramatic Movement
was, therefore, the best possible model to suggest how Koreans might achieve their
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Irish Theatre and Modern Korean Theatre 561

independence through a cultural movement. However, due to geographical distance and

cultural differences, there were limitations and difficulties in gaining access to specific
information about Irish theatre. Regardless, Korean intellectuals highly admired Irelands
cultural nationalism in the 1920s and 1930s. Jang has labeled this trend of Korea aspiring
to, and emulating Ireland as a mental fever, that placed an emphasis on enlightening and
educating people through the social and ethical dimensions of the role of Korean theatre
(Jang 199). Its central attention to Ireland is a result of a consciousness that the appropriation of another distant culture signifies the evolution of theatre (Singleton 93).
The Theatre Arts Research Association (19311939), called TARA was a renowned
theatre group that played a pivotal role in developing Korean theatre. It consisted of 12
Korean intellectuals, who had majored in English, German and Russian literature in Japan
and then returned to Korea after their graduation; the main members of TARA were Yu
Chijin, Hong Haesung, Yun Baknam, Kim Jinseop, and Ham Sedok. They are now
regarded as crucial theatre figures in Korean theatre history (Jang 1502). Their central
goal was to establish a New Drama in Korea (Jang 150). As a result, they set out to
stage Western European drama by dint of their translation works. In a short span of
8 years, they introduced as many as 25 Western dramas translated into Korean, such as by
Shakespeare, Ibsen, and Synge and performed only 12 Korean plays (Han 198). Through
various activities ranging from giving lectures, staging, and touring performances all over
the country, to publishing the professional magazine Theatre Arts, the intellectuals sought
to establish a theatre culture that would enlighten the people in Korea, thereby enabling
theatre to become the space of possibilities that would promulgate the modern spirit
and theatre discourse (Bourdieu 184).
As Rim has argued, this modern theatre movement was entirely different from the
Western situation in Europe:
Ibsen, Strindberg, Shaw, and others had written many of their plays, usually unproduced and
often unpublished, before the advent of the theatre companies that put them on stage. In Japan
[and Korea], however, the situation was quite different. The new theatrical organizations in
Japan [and Korea] there were created in response to a desire on the part of many intellectuals
for a new and meaningful theatre in their country. The organizations were created before any
Japanese [and Korean] playwrights of stature appeared. (qtd. in Jang 187)

This inversion is related to how Korean theatre improved its social status during the
modern theatre movement. Since the Choson dynasty (13921910), theatre was looked
down upon as vulgar entertainment, which was performed by the lowest class of people,
due to the Confucian world view held by educated civil officials at the highest level (Jang
1856). The fact that TARAs activities were undertaken in Korea by intellectuals who
had studied at or graduated from Japanese universities, foreshadows the shift of a field of
forces that made it possible to elevate the theatres social status in colonial Korea
(Bourdieu 184). Yet, the radical nature of this emerging theatre movement underlines the
extent to which the Korean situation under the Japanese colonial cultural hegemony was
not ready to adapt modern theatre, as there were neither decent theatre venues nor
professional theatre institutions to support TARAs movement. During the 1930s in
particular, the political and social repression enforced by the Japanese colonial government were severely accentuated following Japans invasion of China (19311945). Koreas
natural resources and labor pool were plundered by Japan, and cultural activities for the
most part were regarded as political propaganda by Japan.
In addition to stage censorship, which was controlled by Japan, the situation was made
worse by the fact that these intellectuals did not even have a glimpse of Western theatre
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562 Irish Theatre and Modern Korean Theatre

in person, either in colonial Korea or in Japan whilst studying there. This implies that for
Korean intellectuals were exposed to Western theatre merely through the textual forms
available at the beginning of the 20th century, the whole spectrum of terms and practices
in modern theatre could not be anything but abstract at the rhetorical level until new
Korean plays were produced in a realistic manner. It is significant that the introduction of
Western drama in Korea was mainly through Japan. Given the fact that most Korean
elites in TARA studied in Japan and had thereby been drawn into its cultural sphere,
they first encountered the Western world in the form of a modern culture while they
were students in Japan only after they had been introduced to foreign literature that
had been translated into Japanese. Put succinctly, Korean elites were only acquainted with
a European theatre that had already been adapted by individual Japanese intellectuals.
Even though they studied English literature and by and large had the capacity to directly
translate Western plays, particularly Irish plays, there are a number of errors to be found
as a result of the cultural distance between East and West in their translations, because of
their incomplete knowledge of the English language (Jang 295300).
Regardless, Korean intellectuals insisted that in an attempt to establish a modern
Korean theatre and an independent nation, they had to create a new origin in the theatre
field by negating the tradition of Korean folk theatre (Jang 175). In other words,
adapting Western drama in TARA meant the pursuit of otherness for the creation of
self,4 fabricating an origin through the process of transforming nothingness into being via
European drama in modern Korean theatre. This accentuates the main characteristic of
the theatre movement in Korea at the beginning of the twentieth century.
The result of such a commitment to attract and cultivate people through European
drama staged throughout the early 20th century in Korea, however, was somewhat
flawed on account of ignorance of the stage language in relation to a (stage) translation
of another cultural totality (Pavis 18). In practice, Korean audiences enjoying Sinpa theatre, which was regarded as synonymous with commercial theatre because it also relied
on exaggeration and extreme sentiment, had little actual interest in seeing Western drama
on stage. Seemingly, this illustrates the idea of the necessity for new modern drama written in Korean among learned elites of TARA. Bearing in mind the fact that these members hoped to negate the traditional Korean theatre inheritance, and since Korea had no
link to Western theatre throughout its history, there was no choice but to imitate the
content and form of Western drama. Yet, early Korean realist drama under Japanese rule
cannot simply be understood as emulating Irish playwrights. Rather, for Korean playwrights such imitation was the best means of producing new modern drama, which
originated from their imperative and urgent need to put the national spirit into theatre by
reinforcing a vision of a unified, resistant, and privileged culture (Singleton 95). This is
where Yu Chijin and Ham Sedok stand in Korean theatre history.
2. Yu Chijin and Ham Sedoks Early Realism Drama
It is widely accepted that Yu Chijin (19051974), one of the main founding members of
TARA, wrote the Korean realist drama with his early plays in the 1930s after the first Korean modern play Wifes Han (1917) had been written by the well-known twentieth century
novelist Yi Kwangsu. It is also widely acknowledged that Ham Sedok (19151950) was
apprenticed to Yu Chijins realist playwriting for two years, and that his training was based
on Irish drama as the main text he should look to for writing practice (Jang, Irish 3289).
On the other hand, these writers pro-Japanese activities writing pro-Japanese drama,
establishing and joining a pro-Japanese theatre company in the 1940s- during the colonial
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period indelibly tainted their careers and lives. Although they were contemporaries, after
Koreas liberation from Japanese rule (1945), they pursued remarkably different paths that
would reflect Koreas complicated modern history: Yu became an acknowledged primogenitor of modern Korean theatre in that he played a crucial role in establishing the first
drama school (1962) now entitled Seoul Arts College and improved the theatre culture as an educator, director, critic and administrator in Seoul; Ham, meanwhile, organised and attended the leftist theatre movement as a playwright in North Korea after the
Liberation (1945). Because of the quality of their early plays and especially Yus artistic
authority as a central theatre figure, Yu and Ham have been regarded as the best examples of Korean realist playwrights in the early twentieth century. For this reason, the
impact of Irish theatre on Korean theatre has been most deftly illustrated by the similarity
between these Korean playwrights and Sean OCasey and J.M. Synge throughout Korean
theatre history.
Both Yu and Hams early plays portray the miserable lives of the Koreans in a realistic
manner and have several factors in common: first, the indirect impact of Irish playwrights
such as Sean OCasey and J.M. Synge. Second, the motif of a mad mother and her dead
son and finally, the portrayal of nature as national landscape and a sophisticated depiction
of the inner state of the characters in these plays.
Yus early works, A Mud Hut (1932), Cow (1935) and The Landscape of the Village Under
the Willow (1933) which are often referred to as Yus peasants trilogy have been
considered to be the first Korean realist dramas, and were heavily influenced by the writing of Sean OCasey, particularly in terms of the realistic description of the poor in his
Dublin trilogy-The Shadow of a Gunman, Juno and the Paycock and The Plough and the Stars(Jang, Irish 25960). Hams early plays, Sanhuguri (1936) and A Journey to Mui Island
(1941) were influenced by J.M. Synges Riders to the Sea.5
Both Korean playwrights endeavoured to represent and give voice to Korean colonial
reality for the public through the medium of Irish theatre. The predominant reason why
their works are highly valued as distinctive Korean realist drama is that these writers captured the depressed sentiment and psyche of the Korean people under Japanese occupation. Thus, it would seem that the most appealing means by which to manifest the
sentiments of the Korean people under colonial rule was to illustrate the peoples
repressed life as realistically as they could, by emulating the dramaturgies of the two Irish
playwrights.
Unlike the trend in Korean literary works at the time that embraced art for arts sake
and thus depicted a diverse range of aesthetic dimensions, TARA members dramatic
works were, for the most part, intended to be realistic. It was thought that realist drama
as modern theatre was a crucial and illustrative force that could address the colonial experience and the resistance against Japan. Since Korea had neither the tradition of modern
drama nor a foundation, TARA members hoped to create an original equivalent to
European drama. They thus refashioned and imitated Irish plays, thereby creating new
modern Korean drama in the early 20th century.
The Korean peoples sentiments that Yu and Ham sought to reveal are embedded
within the context of the motif that I have highlighted, a mad mother and her dead son
in both Korean playwrights works. In the case of Yu Chijins play, A Mud Hut, this
motif is represented by the metaphor of the land as an absent space and in Ham Sedoks
play, Sanhuguri, it is illustrated by the metaphor of the sea as an absolute space of fate.
The last thing to be noted is that their early plays illuminate a nature-as-national landscape and a sophistication of the inner state of the characters. What is noticeable here is
that, upon closer inspection, the notion of nature is not meant to be the certain national
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scenery itself as essential surroundings in the modern Korea era, but rather it refers to the
background of the colonial inhabitants concrete life based on their social and economic
status. This illustrates the fact that the landscape as an independent and autonomous reality does not appear in their plays (Kojin, xii). To be specific, by positing the sea and
land that eradicate natures idyllic and pastoral status as the setting of daily life associated
with colonial reality, Yu Chijin and Ham Sedok could illustrate a human landscape of
perfect visibility (Anderson 185). This interestingly lead to a palpable consequence that,
through the moment in which nature shifted into national landscape, their attempt to
describe naked colonial reality reaches the most realistic aesthetic level far beyond its central aim that enlightened people to Korean theatres role.
Furthermore, representing the Korean people through the lens of Korean drama ostensibly affirmed a shift in theatre practitioners mode of thinking about how theatre should
be approached, which meant a transition from the written text to theatre practice. In
order to create Koreas own origins in theatre in the era of Japanese Rule, Yu and Ham
sought to entirely denote the Korean sentiment in a realistic way, by employing vernacular language to demonstrate a specific local authenticity, and render the stage prominently
and realistically in their plays. Since Yu and Ham claimed that realism was the most
evolved and modernized form of theatre (Jang 16670), this is directly related to the ways
in which they absorbed and assimilated these Irish playwrights.
3. Yus A Mud Hut: The Land as an Absent Space
Yu, in his autobiography, stated that if I wrote a play, I would have to be like Sean
OCasey (qtd. in Jang 258). His B.A. thesis at Rikkyo University in Japan was a study of
Sean OCasey, which was published in the newspaper in Korean (1932). For Yu, Sean
OCasey was an artistic mentor who provided an exemplary direction that he too should
pursue in order to become a great playwright, and indeed he insisted that his works
would be regarded as a mere clumsy imitation of OCaseys pieces (qtd. in Jang 255).
By identifying with Sean OCaseys nationalistic view, Yus life and works were based on
a seminal representation of a subordinate social group(Murphy 67); it was thus that Yu
transformed a picture of Dublins urban poor in OCaseys trilogy into a portrayal of
Koreans agricultural livelihood and thereby completed the Korean peasant trilogy (Grene
111). Yus three act play, A Mud Hut portrays the farm workers gritty life in the 1920s
through Myung-seos family, who are waiting for a letter from their son Myung-su, who
used to send them the little money he earned from menial labor in Japan, but has suddenly ceased to contact his family for over a year. Here, Yu makes a conscious effort to
foreground the familys break-down of community caused by the loss of their land, projecting contemporaneous focus on the Korean intellectuals: The loss of sovereignty
deprives the nation of a source of identity (Sorensen 3067). As the drama progresses,
the intensity of the dramatic conflict centers on the depiction of the Japanese plundering
Korea as the main characters desperately await word from their son so as to, at the very
least, assuage their fierce poverty.
In this play, the land that is integral to peasant life is itself characterized as an
absent space. This is achieved by the fact that the older characters are incapable of working the land, whilst much of the younger generation abandon their homeland to eke out
a living in Japan or China. Therefore, the land is left destitute a wasted, absent space.
Furthermore, the dichotomy between the older and the younger generation is starkly
underlined. Aside from the depiction of loss of their soil, this accentuates the characters
inability to become productive labour forces, defining the atmosphere of colonial reality,
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rendering the house a mud hut as a grave or living-hell in the characters conversation (1 Act). The depiction of loss of their land is also echoed by the physical deformity
of those who are hopelessly left with a sick body. Myung-Seos disease and his daughters
hunchback appearance are deeply rooted in their harsh days of the Japanese invasion,
which is not far from the rhetoric of the sickness of the nation.
In A Mud Hut, it is a mother Myung-seos wife who is the only labor source to
take care of the family members and sustain their living. This is actually supported by her
continuous movements on and off the stage that place her at the center of the narrative.
However, she becomes increasingly disoriented because of her desperate yearning for
news of her son: in order to welcome my son I have to groom myself and clean the
house, otherwise our house is so dark and poor (3 Act). This process of the tragic collapse of Myung-seos family in A Mud Hut parallels that which takes place in Kyung-seos
family, who are their close neighbours. Yu Chijin displays and focuses on comical elements in which the presence of drunken Kyung-sun, who could not cultivate his land
because it was confiscated by Japan, appears on stage. Kyung-sun is portrayed as drunken
or buffoonish by exploiting a nasal sound and by being afraid of his chubby wifes nitpicking throughout the play. He therefore plays an integral role in transcending the tragic
atmosphere, as his own ridiculousness reveals the fundamental human condition. In eventually leaving the village with his family as a result of the Japanese plundering of their
property, he resolves: Im happy, even though somebody urges me to cry, I wouldnt. I
wont cry regardless of this unhappiness; Because I have nothing to have or to lose, rather
I feel free (Act 3). As Yu confesses, Kyung-sun is a vivid corporeal reflection of Boyle
and Joxer in Juno and Paycock, just as these Irish characters in Sean OCaseys work deploy
the body as a mixture of pathos and laughter (Jang 2556).
A Mud Hut ends with a scene in which Myung-seos son is killed because of his
engagement in Korean liberation activism and his ashes are returned to them. In response
to Myung-sus death, the last scene entails notably grim facts; the mother becomes more
conspicuous with her madness and the father keeps denying the death of his son in grief
and frustration. Though desperate in such an ending, Yu significantly provides no decoration to the picture of the peasants life of poverty and hardship. Moreover, he suggests
that inertia and suffering derives not only from the Japanese occupation, but also from
their ignorance and incapability represented as never knowing about the meaning of the
word, liberation.
4. Hams Sanhuguri (1936): The Sea as a Space of an Absolute Fate
Ham Sedoks one act play, Sanhuguri is his first work as a playwright, which was not
staged, unlike Yus A Mud Hut. Sanhuguri depicts a fishing village on the western coast
of Korea. His early realist drama is lauded for the fact that it portrays fishermens lives
in a much more accurate and sophisticated manner than had been previously seen due
to Hams trips to the fishing village. In comparison to Yus influence from Sean
OCasey, little is known of the extent to which Ham derived his works from those of
J.M. Synge. Yet, based on his other work in which he has his male protagonist proclaim
the grand beauty of Synges plays, it purportedly notes that J.M. Synge was a significant
model in shaping Hams identity as a playwright (Kim 71). Hams dramaturgical strategy
in Sanhuguri is particularly reminiscent of J.M. Synges Riders to the Sea in terms of the
narrative and its devices (Kim 712).
The main narrative of Sanhuguri recapitulates a mothers waiting for the return of her
son, Bok-jo, from the sea where he went fishing with other villagers for a living.6 Just as
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J.M. Synges Riders to the Sea deals with Mauryas tragedy of her deceased sons, the focus
in this play is on her deepest anxiety and nervousness as to whether or not Bok-jo is
alive. In Sanhuguri, the mother has already lost two of her sons, which compels her to be
endlessly obsessed with the welfare of her remaining sons. In comparison with Yus, this
play is more explicable in that it foregrounds a mother figure based on the pre-history of
her drowned sons in the sea, thus emphasising the realm of death and life by way of displaying a sense of inevitable destiny. In this respect, the sea functions as a space of an
absolute fate that far outweighs the absence or death of her sons.
Ham utilizes traditional Korean elements, such as the mothers prayer to the Water
God, her inauspicious intuition revealing her unconscious prediction of her sons drowning, and a Korean fortune tellers prophecy that she will never be able to give a decent
funeral for her sons throughout her entire life (Kim 756). These dramatic implications
definitely provide the symptoms of her disorganized mentality in the final scenes emotional intensity. Moreover, Ham has her dialogue imbued with grief and mourning when
she finds out about her sons drowning. By deploying such poetic language, as for
instance depicting the overflow of wind and the flock of rainbow-colored fishes the latter of which is obviously reminiscent of Mauryas well-known monologue7 from J.M.
Synges Riders to the Sea Ham saturates his play with an atmosphere of absolute fatality
(Kim 812). The play ends with a desperate conversation between the son and the
daughter who are left: Why should we live to keep crying every day and night? This
inexorably reaffirms a series of tragic events that had happened to their family and the
mothers madness.
5. A Mad Mother and Her Dead Son: A Peculiar Aspect of Korean Modern Drama
In light of the endings of the plays discussed above, the image of the mother in both
plays is presented as a languid, self-pitying and defeatist figure in the face of the colonial
reality epitomized by her dead son. These two Korean playwrights discovered the potential of Irish drama as a means of describing the Korean peoples experience and sentiment
in colonial Korea and as a model of what modern drama should be, so as to enlighten
and cultivate the public. However, they did not go so far as to draw visions of a hopeful
future, which seemed to stem from their recognition that Korean theatre had no origin
and no predecessor in the modernization of theatre until TARA emerged, as a result of
necessity of the new drama in the 1930s. In this respect, they could neither consider the
past nor the future from a linear perspective under the Japanese Rule. Instead, they only
saw the present of colonial reality. This characteristic can be linked to a peculiar aspect of
Korean modern drama.
If modernity is understood as the form of a desire to wipe out whatever came earlier, then for Korean intellectuals who believed that they had no origin (past) and no
future, the present was in the hope of reaching at last a point, or a point of origin
that marks a new departure (de Man 148). This observation is remarkably significant in
light of Korean modern drama, which, whilst taking into account important elements
such as the fact that playwrights such as Yu Chijin and Ham Sedok almost wholly imitated the works of Irish playwrights, was inevitably greatly transformed by and situated in
the historical context of Korea. Therefore, such Korean elites view of time sheds a light
on the question as to why the distortion of time perspective occurred in early modern
Korean drama during the colonial period.
Another theme that may be explored further is the expression of extreme feelings and
excessive sentiments in modern Korean theatre. Yi Kwangsu, a prominent Korean
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modern literary author (18921950), argues that Korean thoughts and emotions were
suppressed by a narrow-minded morality during the 500 years of the choson dynasty, not
to mention the pre-Choson and that Confucian morality had stifled the expression of
peoples feelings and, as a result, Koreas literature has been unable to flourish like the
great literature of other modern civilized empires (qtd. in Jager 23). In much the same
way this applies to the modern Korean theatre in relation to its diverse exposure of feeling, which is the kernel that divorces modern from pre-modern values. This explains
why Sinpa theatre is characterised by extreme sentiment most notably an overflowing
of tears and outbursts of laughter, which were immensely popular during the Japanese
occupation. Therefore, it can be stated that for Korean intellectuals who pursued the
modernization of Korean theatre by objecting to Sinpa theatre, creating a new drama is
the extension of an effort to express the feeling without exaggeration, in a realistic and
sophisticated way.
Unlike the Western world, Korea had no centered subject in the Cartesian sense, due
to the long-standing Confucian tradition that stresses the value of the community at the
cost of individual sacrifice, and the general social trend seen during the Japanese rule is
still conversant with the inherent logic of traditional Korea that focused on an organic
nation of society and nation rather than a civic one and emphasized the importance of
collectivism (Shin 55). Subsequently, this situation caused Korean playwrights to express
the appropriate moderation of feeling through the internalization of community in their
works. More precisely, since Confucian morality was still circulating in the face of modernisation during the colonial era, it is limiting to depict a modern subject in Korean
drama who is entirely liberated from the feudal characteristics of the past. Therefore, by
incorporating community to colonial people who were unable to distance society from
individuals, those who pursued the modern theatre movement tried to illustrate the characters feelings and interior aspects of that person, which has been mainly exposed to
the violent loss of self of the colonial period (Oates 173). In the first modern drama
since 1917 when Yi Kwangsu published his Wifes Han, the central themes and concerns
in Korean plays have usually been associated with the absence of a house or a languid
father figure, and in this respect most characters in early 20th century-Korean drama do
not exhibit the invigorated livelihood of Korean people; they are inexorably illustrated as
handicapped or incapable in the context of the harsh life in colonial Korea (Yang 105
11). Most notably, the depiction of female characters is not focused on their procreative
forces throughout the plays, and indeed it is very rare to center on the female protagonist
in the development of the narrative. Regardless of their social status, be it a housewife or
New Woman,8 these women utterly are rendered disoriented or insane- in the end as a
result of a family members death, failed love, or an unhappy marriage. Interestingly,
foregrounding the virtues of a woman as akin to productive fertility in Korean plays does
not appear until the 1960s through Cha Byumseoks realist drama, Mountain Fire (1962),
which depicts the lives of widows left in a far off mountain village during the Korean
War in connection with somewhat lurid images of female sexuality.
Though based on a true reflection of the Korean playwrights view at large, it cannot
be denied that this attempt to depict Koreas reality, in the light of 36 years of colonial
experience, the Korean War and the partition, is to express the degree of extremity of a
hopelessly deterioriating situation (Kojin 107). However, for this very reason, this can
provide us with another insight into how Korean realist drama (or Asian theatre) has
evolved and its concept of modernity as compared with that of Western theatre history.
In the early 20th century, Ireland was a beacon of hope to Korean intellectuals under
Japanese rule and its dramatic movement was seen as an ideal model on which to base
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568 Irish Theatre and Modern Korean Theatre

the modernization of Korean theatre. No other Western nation has been able to capture
such feverish attention throughout Korean theatre history as Ireland managed to do.
Although the theatre movement of TARA only lasted eight years, due to financial crisis
and political repression (Jang 153), their efforts to create a modern theatre culture in
Korea planted the seed of realist drama that was continued as the mainstream of Korean
modern theatre all the way up until the 1960s.
Short Biography
Yuh-Jhung, Hwang studied Theatre studies in Korean National University of Arts and
Korean cultural studies in Leiden University in the Netherlands. She is a member of
IATC-Korea(International Association of Theatre Critics) and a literary critic. She is currently working on the relation between Irish theatre riots (The Playboy riots (1907) and
The Plough and the Stars riots (1926)) and its audience at Trinity College in Dublin. She
has numerous Korean articles and essays on modern and contemporary Korean theatre.
Notes
* Correspondence: Drama Department, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland. Email: egallia@hotmail.com
1 Talchum is the name for a traditional Korean mask dance and Pansori is a musical show which is performed
by one singer accompanied by one drummer.
2
During 19211933, the articles on the Irish dramatic movement and Irish theatre include twenty-two items
published in the newspapers and magazines, excluding Irish history and society. They are as follows (Jang 202203)
: Pyon Yongno, Meteruringku-wa Yeissu-ui shinbisasang [Mystic Thoughts of Maeterlink and of Yeats] Pyeho
[Ruins] (January 1921); Kim Ujin, Choson maropnun chosonmundan-e koham [Addresses to the Chosun
Literature] Chungoe ilbo (4 April 1922); Yonmorhayaganun toorul pojonkoja aeran-ui munyepuhungundong
[Irish Dramatic Movement] Tongmyong [The Light of the East], (15 April 1923); Chong Insop, Syooguk-ui
chakpum-gwa sasang [Shaws Works and His Thoughts] Haeoe munhak [Foreign literature], (July 1927); Chong
Insop, Hyondae yonggukmunhak 2 aeranmunhak [Modern English literature 2 Irish literature], Chungoe ilbo
(3 March 1930); Kim Chong, Aeranmunhak kaegwan(2) aeran munyebuhung [Overview of Irish Literature2Irish Literary Revival] Sinsegye [The new world], (February 1930); Yi Hyosok, Chon Milington Ssingku-ui
gukyongu [A Study of John Millington Synge], Taejungkongnon [Public Opinion], (March 1930); Yi Choyong,
Tammipa-ui sado, Osuka waildu [Apostle of Aestheticism: Oscar Wilde] Chungoe ilbo (812 August 1930); Yi
Yosong, Aeranundong-ui tukjil [The Particular Features of the Irish Dramatic Movement], Samcholli [Three
thousand miles], (September 1930); Kim Tonghwan, Aeran-ui puhwalchol nandong Aeranminjokundong-ui
tanmyon, [The Irish Easter Rising: Some aspects of the Irish National Movement], Samcholli, September 1930;
Kim Yongsu, Aeran-ui shinjinchakka Syon Okeisi-ui huiguk [Irelands new writers The plays of Sean
OCasey], Choson ilbo [Choson daily], (24 February 1931; Inwanghagin, Bonadu Syo [Bernard Shaw], Shindonga
[New East Asia], (February 1932); Song Dongsak, Yumijuui-ui Hyojang Osuka waildu: ku-ui huiguk, sallome rul
punyogham-e apso [Oscar Wilde], Paegak (March 1932); Yu Chijin, Segye yosongkugchangin sullye reidi
kuregori [Lady Gregory] Choson ilbo (16 March 1932); Chang Hyonjik, Aeran hyangtochakka Chon Milliton
singku [J.M. Synge] Munhak [Literature], (16 March 1932); Chang kije, shirhommudae sangyongakbon,
okmoon-e daehayo [About the Play, The Gaol Gate] Choson ilbo (28 June 1932); Yu Chijin, Nodongja
chulshin-ui kugchakka Syon Okeisi [Proletarian playwright Sean OCasey], Choson ilbo (327 December 1932);
Chang Kije, Syorul mannun pi syosik kamchong [Bernard Shaw] Choson ilbo (2224 February 1933); Yi Kwanyong,
Bonadu Syo-ui saengae-wa sasang [The life and thought of Bernard Shaw], Choson ilbo (2325 February 1933);
An Yongsun, Aeran Hyondaekugchakka Don Seiniron [A Study of Lord Dunsanys Works] Choson ilbo (1327
May 1933); Kim Kwangsop, Huiguk,Mugi-wa ingan-e daehayo [About the play, Arms and the Man], Donga ilbo
(2224 June 1933); Pak Nogap, Sobu-ui chonga yongu [A Study of The Playboy of the Western World] Choson
chungang ilbo (2026 July 1933).
3
The list of Irish plays in Korean translation is as follows (Jang, Irish 1567).
Pak Yongchol, Lady Gregorys Rising of the Moon, Kaebyok (October 1921); Pak Yongchol, J.M.Synges Riders to
the Sea, Kaebyok (January 1922); Kim Wujin, Lord Dunsanys The Glittering Gate, Dongmyong (April 1923); Cho
Yongdae, Lord Dunsanys Fame and the Poet, Shinchonji (April 1924); Chang Kije, J.M. Synges Riders to the Sea,
Taejung Kongnon (March 1930); Choi Pyonghan, Lady Gregorys The Rising of the Moon, Taejung Kongnon (June
1930); J.M.Synges Riders to the Sea, Byeolgeongon (November 1930); Chang Kije, Sean OCaseys The Shadow of a
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Irish Theatre and Modern Korean Theatre 569

Gunman, Choson Ilbo Daily (August 1931); Choi Chongu, Lady Gregorys The Rising of the Moon, Choson Ilbo
Daily (October 1931); Chang Kije, Lord Dunsanys Golden Doom, Munye Wolgan (November 1931); Chang Kije,
St. J. Ervines The Magnanimous Lover, Tonggwang (July 1932); Yi Hayun, Lord Dunsanys The Tents of the Arabs,
Tonggwang (August 1932); Choi Chongu, Lady Gregorys The Gaol Gate, Choson Ilbo Daily (February 1933); An
Yongsun, Lord Dunsanys Fame and the Poet, Choson Ilbo Daily (December 1934); Im Haksu, W.B.Yeats The Only
Jealousy of Emer, Choson Ilbo Daily (July 1936).
The list of nine Irish plays performed on Korean stage is as follows (Jang, Irish 157). The order for this is
Director; Title; Theatre Company; Date.
Kim Wujin, Lord Dunsanys The Gilittering Gate, Tonguhoe (July 1921); Pak Sunghui, Lord Dunsanys The Gods
of the Mountain, Towolhoe (July 1924); Pak Sunghui, J.M.Synges In the Shadow of the Glen, Towolhoe (April 1925);
Pak Sunghui, Lord Dunsanys Fame and the Poet, Towolhoe (April 1925); Yon Hangnon, Lady Gregorys The Rising
of the Moon, Paskyula (July 1927); Unknown, Lord Dunssanys The Gods of the Mountain, Ewha Girls College (February 1929); Hong Haesong, St. J. Ervines The Magnanimous Lover, Sirhom Mudae (June 1932); Hong Haesong, Lady
Gregorys The Gael Gate, Sirhom Mudae (June 1932); Booimyongui, T.C. Murrays Birthright, Myongil Theatre
(December 1932); Yi Hayun, Lord Dunsanys The Tents of the Arabs, Yonhui College (June 1933).
4
This expression, the pursuit of otherness for the creation of self is a phrase quoted and slightly modified from
Brian Singletons The Pursuit of Otherness for the Investigation of Self (Singleton 94).
5
Most researchers have dealt with the literary similarities in Yu and Hams early plays under an umbrella of
OCasey and Synge by analyzing Irish plays with Korean plays from the comparative perspective. To put it another
way, the study of Irish drama in Korea has utterly focused on the relationship between Irish and Korea drama during the colonial period, especially the 1930s. In this article, I mainly refer to Kims and Jangs research among these
scholarships.
6
Another play of his, A Journey to Mui island (1941)is akin to this work in that it also deals with a mothers waiting for her son although it remains an unfinished work.
7
For instance, her remark from 1: 235, When the eastern wind is blowing instead of the western-south one,
my son might return to me seems to come from Mauryas, .when the wind breaks from the south, and you
can hear the surf is in the east, and the surf is in the west (Kim 82).
8
The new woman was a concept that was used during the colonial period by Korean intellectuals as a means
to liberate women from their Confucian heritage. The new woman, which was mostly propagated by intellectual men, was to be someone who was an exemplary wife and mother who had the right to choose free love and
who simultaneously pursued a higher education. For more information regarding this term, new woman, I refer
to Ann Heilmanns The New Woman in the New Millennium: Recent Trends in Criticism of New Woman Fiction, Literature Compass (Vol. 2. December 2005).

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