A Study on Spatiality and Performativity of Korean Immersive Theatre

Abstract

Realistic theatre was born in the late 19th century and remains a mainstay of theatre to these days. On the other hand, anti-realistic theatre, which originated from the historical avant-garde that emerged in the early 20th century, has also continued its lineage into contemporary post-dramatic theatre. These researchers would like to identify the characteristics of the emerging immersive theatre in this stream of anti-realistic theatre as post-dramatic and ‘performative.’ The subject of this study is immersive theatre, specifically ‘Korean’ immersive theatre. These researchers selected two Korean immersive plays, <Road Theatre Daehak-ro> and <Ghost in the Theatre: beyond Game>, and conducted a study focusing on their spatial characteristics and performativity. We focused on the aspect of ‘space’ because we believe that the defining characteristic of immersive theatre is the way it uses space. In immersive theatre, the ‘fourth wall,’ which has stood firmly in place since the 18th century theatre theorist Denis Diderot, is broken down and the distinction between stage and auditorium disappears entirely. This results in the audience being surrounded three-dimensionally by the space, which in turn places them in the center of the theatre space. In the first of the two immersive plays, <Road Theatre Daehak-ro>, the audience experiences the play by walking through the actual space of Daehak-ro. A prominent feature of the space in this play is the creation of a new space between everyday life and theatre, or between reality and virtuality, created by the audience. The non-representational texts and performances delivered by the actors on top of the space of Daehak-ro allowed the audience to create a performative space through their perception and imagination. Next, the space for <Ghost in the Theatre> was completely virtual. The gallery, where the offline audience was located, was set in 23rd century Seoul, while the metaverse, where the online audience was located, was set in 19th century London. The most striking thing about the space of this play was that the audience and actors were completely free to move around in the space, which allowed for a new negotiation of relationships between them and allowed for a completely new perception. In other words, a fully performative space was created by the free spatial movement and perception of the people located within the theatre space. Although this study is limited to a narrow scope of research, I hope that this study can contribute to future research on Korean immersive theatre.