The Metacultural Theater of Oh T'ae-sŏk

Book excerpt: Here for the first time are translations of five plays by Oh T'ae-sok, Korea's leading playwright and one of the most original dramatists and stage-directors working in Asia today. Drawing inspiration from both East and West and combining styles as disparate as ancient Korean masked dance-drama and contemporary avant-garde theater, these plays range from raucous comedy to historical tragedy, from explorations of the impact of the Korean War to bitter satires of modern Korean life. A stunning visual storyteller, Oh mines Korea's cultural and theatrical traditions--not to preserve them but to interrogate them in light of present social conditions and to reconstruct a new theatrical form that challenges both old and current conventions alike. His metacultural theater investigates "Koreaness" from the perspectives of many different cultures, while at the same time probing the meaning of culture itself.