• Journal of Korean Theatre Studies Association
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• no.48
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• pp.359-384
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• 2012

The purpose of this study was to explore the theatrical aesthetics of the performances which was produced by the theater director, Yang Jung-Ung. Yang has been one of the most influential directors working in Korea in the last 15 years. He has put up performances all over the world with the theater members from his company called Yohangza, which was founded by him in 1997, and working as the director, portrayed his style of the theatrical aesthetics through the works of its plays and musical products. In 2012, this company performed A Midsummer Night's Dream at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. A Midsummer Night's Dream was invited to be staged at the Barbican Center in 2006. In the same year, it received the grand prize and the Audience Choice award at the Gdansk International Shakespeare Festival in Poland. The musical products like A Good Woman from Seoul and the modern Opera Wozeck are representative works of Yohangza, which are known for a unique way of exploring the meaning of life. The 2009 plays Hamlet and Peer Gynt represent Yohangza's simpler yet more insightful theatrical style. Peer Gynt, which debuted at the LG Art Center, made headlines for its innovative staging. It received the grand prix, Best Director and Best Stage Art awards at the 2009 Korea Theater Awards. Yohangza's plays show two-side "image-based" works. The company drastically reduced verbal lines and enriched the plays with Korean sentiment and aesthetics, but their scripts contained many poetic lines full of overtones. They showed a theatrical mise-en-scene of images, energetic dance, songs in chorus and percussion. For example, Korean sentiments were subtly blended into the two Shakespeare's plays, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Twelfth Nights. Their performance combines music, mime, song and dance to create an exhilarating adaptation of Shakespeare's inventive and glittering comedy. In addition, the style of Yohangza Theatre Company is a collision of the past and the present: a reworking of existing Korean styles and themes infused with contemporary elements and full of unique exploration in the plays.