• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.23
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• pp.127-165
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• 2011

This paper focuses on the specificities and semantic meaning of Mikhail Bulgakov's metadrama White Guard and The Flight. The standard conception of metadrama is to purposefully break the dramatic illusion and make bare a playwright's self-consciousness of the theatrical art itself. With the use of the metadrama Bulgakov expressed the essentials of ugly reality, which he couldn't accept as a valuable truth. In this respect, Bulgakov's metadrama becomes at once a window, from which he views the external world in the theatrical vision, and a mirror, in which his political and existential stance as a playwright is reflected. In White Guard Bulgakov described the already theatricalized reality through several instances of 'play-within-play'. In The Flight, composed of eight pieces of dream, a life turned out to be a less solid and less firm reality than dream. Continuously demolishing the cognitive wall between reality and illusion, Bulgakov leads spectators to have a reflective view on the reality. Allowing more powerful demonstrativeness for a play-within-play than for a play-within-play, Bulgakov elevates a metadramatic technique to the level of thematic structure.

• Journal of Korea Entertainment Industry Association
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• v.15 no.8
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• pp.161-180
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• 2021

The purpose of this study is to define Juan Mayorga's play Hamelin as a Post-Epic Theatre and to study the practical directing technique for Hamelin as a Post-Epic Theatre. Post-Epic Theatre, which appeared after the Post-drama, has the purpose of presenting social issues, communicating interactively between the actors and the audience, and making the audience think about the issues presented by the techniques of immersion and alienation. To this end, after examining the theoretical background of the Post-Epic Theatre, the characteristics of the Post-Epic Theatre of Hamelin were identified and based on these features, '1. Building a visual image based on a Cubistic multifocal concept' and '2. The concept of directing was derived from reinforcing Meta-drama through role-playing'. Next, the actual directing technique was discussed, focusing on the chain action of immersion and alienation that occurs in the form of communication between actors and audiences. '1. Presenting the characteristics of the work through Post-Epic Theatre scenography', '2. Co-existence of actors and characters', '3. Building and utilizing body-centered gestus' are them. As a result, demanding an active attitude from the audience, various experiences such as critical thinking of the audience, strengthening the characteristics of post-epic dramas, and active meaning creation were made possible.