Academic Lecture (258): Chinese Opera on the Korean Stage: A Case Study of The Orphan of Zhao — The Seed of Revenge

Lecturer

Oh Soo-kyung

Lecturer: Oh Soo-kyung

Profile:

Professor Emeritus at Hanyang University

Abstract:

Using The Orphan of Zhao — The Seed of Revenge as its central case, this lecture examines how Chinese opera has been transformed and reinterpreted on the Korean stage. It begins with the shared historical roots of Korean and Chinese theatrical cultures — ritual song and dance, the Sinographic sphere, and musical aesthetics — and traces how differences in language and social structure shaped distinct dramatic forms. It then surveys how Chinese opera entered Korea as text, becoming localized through translation, woodblock printing, and novelistic rewriting, with The Orphan of Zhao generating multiple narrative variants in Korean culture.

The lecture then returns to the tragic spirit of the Yuan zaju play — its values of loyalty and righteousness, its ethics of revenge, and its characterization — and explains how it became a canonical text of universal significance. Against that backdrop, it analyzes the Korean National Theater’s production of The Orphan of Zhao — The Seed of Revenge, focusing on its transformation in stagecraft, narrative strategy, and character interpretation: the minimalist and symbolic use of space, a tragic style that fuses irony and humor, and a reconsideration of the legitimacy of revenge.

The lecture closes by discussing how the production uses Korean affective sensibilities and a contemporary performance vocabulary to rethink questions of historical memory, justice, and humanity, turning the traditional revenge narrative into a deeper critique of power and ethics — and demonstrating the contemporary significance of cross-cultural theatrical exchange.