The purpose of this study is to examine the patterns of adoption of Tsubouchi Shoyo's Theory of Children's Plays within the children's drama world of the 1920s and 1930s, thereby uncovering their significance in relation to the formation of modern chi...
The purpose of this study is to examine the patterns of adoption of Tsubouchi Shoyo's Theory of Children's Plays within the children's drama world of the 1920s and 1930s, thereby uncovering their significance in relation to the formation of modern children's drama in Korea. The reason for focusing on Tsubouchi Shoyo is that after Kim Unjeong introduced his children's plays <Echo> and <The Country Mouse and the City Mouse>, fable plays−which dramatize Aesop's fables or convey moral lessons through short, vivid plots−established themselves as a creative method. Furthermore, in his book Children's Education and Theater, the sections on the mission and utility of children's plays were has been consistently referenced by critics of children's drama. He advocated for home–based children's plays premised on the artisticization of play, asserting that children's spontaneity and dramatic instincts could be enhanced while they performed themselves. Tsubouchi Shoyo's children's plays movement, which began in 1921 and ended in 1924, did not remain the mainstream in the Japanese children's drama world. However, in colonial Korea, children's plays emerged as part of the juvenile literary movement, aiming to create drama performed by children. For those responsible for children's plays in colonial Korea, who held a utilitarian view of art, Tsubochi Shoyo's fable plays and theories on children's drama provided a theoretical foundation. However, the fact that the utility of children's plays emphasized by Tsubochi Shoyo until the mid–1930s continues to be repeated in the world of children's drama reveals the limitations that there were many people who did not know the value of children's plays even after 10 years of performance, and that the people in charge of children's drama did not attempt to accept or advocate new children's plays due to changes in the situation of colonial Joseon.