Sohn Jin-Chaek's 'Madang' Aesthetics in Playboy Lee Chunpoongjeun and Yulha Ilgyee Manbo

<이춘풍 난봉기>와 <열하일기만보>를 통해 본 손진책의 '마당미학'

Son Jinchaek got into his directing career since 1976 when he founded the theatre group Minye with Huhgyu and others. His experience in Minye was the turnaround of his life; Huhgyu was a teacher in his artist's life whereas Brecht was a teacher for his ideology to make 'Korean Theatre'. From these two teachers, he learned how and why Korean Theatre should be made. Since then, Korean theatre was his calling for 40 years of his directing career. As he established Michoo in 1986, it served a turning point in his art. His focus was on intrinsic attributes of Korean Theatre with Madang Jungshin. With Madang Jungshin, he tried to get over the former generation's fixation on external materials of Korean traditional theatre and folk culture to make Korean Theatre. Rather, he believed Korean Theatre could be realized when it grafted Korean social reality onto the stage, while the form was subsequent. He advocated Korean Theatre should mirror present social reality and circulate social energy. Also, he did not give up aesthetics. On the contrary, his aesthetic style was conspicuously evident in his productions. In spite of his life long career with noteworthy works, the critical discourses are strikingly scarce especially when compared with other senior and peer directors such as Hugh Gyu, Ahn Minsoo, Oh Taesok, and Lee Yoontaek. During his career he has crossed into various genres from Changeuk, Madangnori, and to theatres, which were too versatile to thread them into a discourse and caused a lack of theoretical greeting. Madangnori has anchored its artistic structure on its polished aesthetics which were acclaimed by the general audience for 30 years. For theatre, he concentrated on one production per year to grasp its own style. Theatre works also had revealed his own style of being opened and of being emptied which was certainly different from Madangnori, but had same aesthetic principle within it. This paper attempts to recompose his stylistic features with 'Madang aesthetics' which were based on open space, open acting style, and graphic ensemble. This paper tries to demonstrate how his 'Madang aesthetics' has refined his productions in scenography, acting style, and in more like metaphoric and metonymic symbolic expression of the graphic ensemble. To do this, two productions were explored: eLee Chunpoongjeun and Yulha Ilgyee Manbo. Madangnori was sorely explored by Son Jinchaek with his artistic colleagues Yoon Munshik, Kim Jongyeup, Kim Sungnyu, music designer Park Buhmhoon, and choreographer Guk Sooho. Though it has been ignored for its popular appeal by the doctrinaire theoretical opinions, it started to pull academic attention recently. His theatres are also getting sharp with his 'Madang aesthetics' as well as minimalistic expression in scenography, acting style, and graphic ensemble. Madang Jungshin is the soul and Madang aesthetics is the body in his artistic works. The Madang Jungshin animates the Madang aesthetics, so they become alive in his theatre.