한국연극 무대 위에 재현된 섹슈얼리티 -1988년 대본사전검열 폐지를 전후한 시기를 중심으로

Abstract

In Korean society, the issue of sexuality and representation of sexuality has arisen to the surface after the late 1980s when political oppression was dissolved and the potential of democratization grew. After about ten years, issues concerning sexuality heated up Korean society more than any other political issues. The situation was not different in the field of Korean theatre. Harlotry performed in Jan. 1988 was the first Korean theatre production provoking an obscenity dispute and became the hottest issue of the year with a series of chained events of: the banning of the performance; production company’s denial against banning; authority’s forced shutting down of the theatre; and a signature-collecting drive in the field of Korean theatre. Although the dispute around the performance Harlotry was mainly about controversy over obscenity, at the same time it was about the right to freedom of expression connected to the matters of the abolition of censorship on a script before a public performance and the revision of the law for the performing arts. Nonetheless, in that situation the production could receive a huge spotlight from the press and public and achieved a gigantic commercial success. Harlotry’s success continued in producing successive productions like Harlotry 2 and Trading Harlotry, etc, and it also triggered the emergence of the works with taking sexuality as a main subject or representing sexuality after for years. It is a commonly agreed view of Marcuse, Foucault, Giddens, and Butler etc. that sexuality and discourse about sexuality are closely related to the establishment of modern society and rules. Even though the stance of each varies, they all agree sexuality’s close relationship with the constitution of modern rules, regulations and discourses. Particularly, sexuality induces cultural senses with maintaining its discrepancy and discrimination depending on the sex (female and male), age (taboos against sexuality of children, juveniles, and elderly people), and causes hierarchization of reproductive sexuality and un-reproductive sexuality (which becomes a branching point of the matters of normal vs. abnormal, and homosexuality etc. concerning wife and prostitute, motherhood, ethics, and sexual activities). Furthermore, this discrepancy and discrimination on sexuality create a social inverse reaction (fear and grotesque) against its representation. Nowadays, among Korean theatres it is not difficult to find the works dealing with sexuality seriously or having it as a main subject matter. Especially, it is worth noticing that recent plays try to tell stories about women’s sexuality, homosexuality, and children’s sexuality, etc. which have been forced to be alienated and kept silent for a long time. However, the problem is whether they have achieved the only meanings which they intended to. And, it should be examined by following three standards: first, the perspective of free expression and social responsibility (censorship and self-censorship); second, the unintended meanings which can be achieved by stage art’s distinct characteristics of visible representation and physical existence; third, author’s ideology (sprit and body, love and pleasure, and the hierarchical relationship of the uterus and vagina) which is revealed through the process of representation of sexuality; etc. Representation of sexuality, especially representing sexuality on the stage, is not an easy matter, since it is tied with the family system, cultural authority, gender identity, and sexual politics, etc. Without a concrete critical awareness to overcome the conventional perception of sexuality and a critical questioning on the extrinsic nature of the identity of sexuality, we will achieve the thing totally different from what we intend to.