이동연극은 문자 해득력과 문화적 경험이 계급, 성별, 지역에 따라 매우 불균질한 식민지 조선의 미디어 상황에서 교화와 선전을 위한 효과적인 미디어로 구상되었다. 연극이 가지고 있던 구술성과 수행성에 이동성을 부여함으로써, 근대 미디어 테크놀로지에 대한 접근이 차단된 계층에 오락과 위안, 시국 인식을 제공한다는 기획이었다. 식민 당국과 조선인 엘리트, 그리고 문화계 종사자들의 여러 이해 관심들이 교차하는 지점에 위치했던 이동연극은 식민지의 문화운동이 갖는 정치적 긴장을 은폐하는 한편으로, ‘오락의 사회적 효용’을 극도로 강조한 것이었다. 이동연극이 가지고 있는 유동성과 가시성은 수기나 현지통신, 위문보고 공연 등을 통해서 문화의 긍정적 효과를 다시 이동연극의 발신지인 중앙으로 수렴하는 재귀적인 회로로도 기능했다. 그러나 식민지의 억압적인 상황에서 출발했던 이동연극은 그 한편에 식민 당국의 기획이 그대로 관철될 수 없는 지점들을 내포하고 있었다. 1943년 이후 늘어난 이동극단들은 실상 총독부의 완전한 통제를 벗어나는 양상을 보여주는데, 이러한 일탈에서 대중문화가 가지고 있는 전복적 실천의 가능성을 읽어낼 수도 있을 것이다.
The traveling theatre was started in 1941 ‘to bring sound and gay recreation to the people’, actually to mobilize productive capacity of the rural area in wartime. It was designed as a media for re-orientaion and recreation and as a flexible media under the colonial cultural condition such as the bilingual situation, serious cultural declination and so on. There were the mass of people, so called ‘non-technological others’ excluded from the contemporary media technology. The traveling theatre could open the circuit to collect the cultural positive effects through its mobilty and visibility. It produced not only performance but also many travel writings and reportages which could show off its activities throughout Colonial Korea, occasionally Manchuria. The position of the traveling theatre would be an intersection along the colonial policy, the enlightenment project of korean elites, and the interests of korean showbiz. We can see the contradiction of the wartime recreation which excluded unsound recreation and included vulgar one, by considering the traveling theatre in colonial Korea. The increasing traveling troupes since 1943 deviated from the control of the government authorities. We can read the posibility of subversive practice of subculture in this deviation.
The traveling theatre was started in 1941 ‘to bring sound and gay recreation to the people’, actually to mobilize productive capacity of the rural area in wartime. It was designed as a media for re-orientaion and recreation and as a flexible media under the colonial cultural condition such as the bilingual situation, serious cultural declination and so on. There were the mass of people, so called ‘non-technological others’ excluded from the contemporary media technology. The traveling theatre could open the circuit to collect the cultural positive effects through its mobilty and visibility. It produced not only performance but also many travel writings and reportages which could show off its activities throughout Colonial Korea, occasionally Manchuria. The position of the traveling theatre would be an intersection along the colonial policy, the enlightenment project of korean elites, and the interests of korean showbiz. We can see the contradiction of the wartime recreation which excluded unsound recreation and included vulgar one, by considering the traveling theatre in colonial Korea. The increasing traveling troupes since 1943 deviated from the control of the government authorities. We can read the posibility of subversive practice of subculture in this deviation.
