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Changing Visions of Koreanness in Oh Tae-sok's Plays, Africa and Love with Foxes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 February 2002

Abstract

Korean playwright, Oh Tae-sok tenaciously has pursued the question of Koreanness in his uniquely experimental style of theatre since the 1970s. The changing visions of Koreanness represented in his social dramas Africa (1984) and Love with Foxes (1996) are examined from a postcolonial perspective. In Africa, Oh's early-80s vision of Korea's historical encounters with the outside world reveals a traditional sense of integrity and innocence being crushed by an increasing sense of alienating globalization. In Love with Foxes, Oh projects another vision of a globalized Korea of the mid-90s as the ‘double’ of a Western metropolitan centre, grimly replicating the dynamics of domination among Korean diasporas and other Asian peoples. Oh, however, ultimately bases his hope for an imagined community of Koreans on their traditional sense of integrity, embracing all kinds of differences.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 2002 International Federation for Theatre Research

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