KJCKorea
Journal Central

The early Gageuk(music drama) of North Korea is important in finding the dividing points between musical dramas in South and North Korea. North Korean Gageuk was patternized while undergoing the process of settling music into theatre. Lee Myeonsang(composition) and Jo Ryeongchul(playwriting), who established the format of bloody Revolutionary Opera, had created pop songs in South Korea and became song/theatre writers representing the system after their defection to North Korea. <Kongji and Patzzi>, which they presented for the first time in the Grand Theater after the ceasefire, was a popular repertory by another creator in South Korea before separation, and is therefore possible to verify the strategy of North Korean Gageuk. The North Korean <Kongji and Patzzi> was lengthened from a one-act play, and its performance was expanded from the capital to the provinces. Animals and comic development were deleted, while class-overcoming love and retributive justice was reinforced. Such a strategy was to carry out the goals of establishing the values of the system by emphasizing realistic probability. The effort was put in realistic stage appearance, and heart-touching music was developed. North Korea utilized Gageuk as a means to show the ways directed by superior authority, and as a system to maximize such emotions. Early North Korean Gageuk put an effort in finding Korean expressions in thematic consciousness, role characteristics, stage appearance, and music composition, etc. Gageuk in this era found the natural harmony of drama and music by absorbing methods from the opera, and this became the foundation of Hyukmyung-Gageuk(Revolutionary Opera).

Flower shoes, Gageuk(music drama), Hyukmyung-Gageuk(Revolutionary Opera), Jo Ryeongchul, Kongji and Patzzi, Lee Myeonsang, North Korean Gageuk, Socialist Realism