Shamanism in Korean Hamlets since 1990: Exorcising Han

Abstract

During the Korean Shakespeare boom of the last twenty years, Hamlethas been performed more than any other drama. Hamletproductions admired by Korean audiences and critics have, like other successful Shakespeare productions in the same period, shared a common tendency for Koreanization in respect of style and theme. The Koreanization of Hamletproductions, in particular, is closely connected with shamanism. The most prominent of Hamletproductions since the 1990s stage rituals like the gut—in which a shaman appears to be possessed. Looking back over the hundred-year history of Hamletin the modern Korean theatre, this paper argues that these shamanistic Hamlets, which have emerged with democratization, globalization, and the extended freedom of the 1990s, serve to exorcise pain of a people who have suffered from the problems of "to be or not to be" through times of colonialism, war, dictatorship, and IMF crisis. Examining the major Hamletproductions (1993-2007), this paper explains the relationship between Hamletand Korean shamanism, which is closely connected with Korean people's han, an indigenous sentiment of pain and regret.