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Why is Waiting for Godot the most frequently staged Western play in Korean theatre history? Why are the absurdists Beckett, Pinter, and Ionesco among the top twelve most staged Western playwrights?2 Further, why is it that Korean scholar Junseo Im3 goes so far as to say that almost all South Korean plays since the 1960s have been more or less influenced by the Theatre of the Absurd, and that absurdist theatre can be regarded as a short cut to understanding Korean contemporary theatre?4 Beginning with a 1960 production of Ionesco’s La Leçon (The Lesson, 1951) by Sireomgeukjang (Experimental Theatre), numerous small Korean theatre groups staged Western existentialist and absurdist plays in the 1960s and 1970s.5 Korean director Young-Woong Lim has staged Waiting for Godot steadily for about forty years since 1969, and his 1988 production was lauded by Martin Esslin. In “The Reception of the Theatre of the Absurd and Korean Theatre,” Miyhe Kim analyzes this extraordinary engagement with Western absurdist theatre in South Korea, and traces the history of its reception. Kim departs from certain scholars’ criticism that Korean theatre artists had received Western absurdist theatre and its aesthetics “uncritically” even when Western realism was not “adequately understood” in Korean theatre, thereby “possibly shaking the foundation of realistic theatre” in Korea. Instead, she argues that Korean theatre’s “active” reception of absurdist theatre should be respected because it has fostered the development of Korean theatre, although Korea should have approached absurdist theatre more judiciously and systematically.6 I would add that there is also no reason why non-realistic experimental theatre should have been explored only after Western realistic theatre7 had been thoroughly founded in Korea, especially given that, as my essay will show, non-realistic theatre is closer to Korea’s indigenous performance aesthetics. The suggestion that Korean theatre should follow the same artistic trajectory as the West (from the achievement of realistic theatre toward anti-realistic experimental theatre) implies an uncritical logic that privileges Western theatre history. As it has done thus far, Korean theatre must simultaneously negotiate the pluralities of global theatrical trends. Kim’s essay on the significance of Korean theatre’s reception of Western

Shifting South Korean Theatre: Jo-Yeol Park’s A Dialogue Between Two Long-necked People and Taesuk Oh’s Chunpung’s Wife