This study attempts to examine the theater histories of Korea and China through Kim Myung-gon’s Passion Faraway and Tian Qinxin’s Bursting Gale and Raging Waves, and investigate how important figures in the theater history are historically portrayed. As for Passion Faraway, this study examined the flow of the theater history in Korea from the 1920s to the 1950s in a sharp relationship with historical reality, and as for Bursting Gale and Raging Waves focusing on the life of Tian Han, an indispensable writer in the Chinese theater world, this study deeply coped with the inner side of the ‘hero’ and the tragic fate. The two works commonly used the method of a play in the play, and tried to communicate the past and the present, and wanted to express this in the theater. However, Passion Faraway emphasized the historical consciousness through chronological composition, while Bursting Gale and Raging Waves focused on the inner description through the flow of consciousness of the protagonist. The similar material of describing the early theater histories of Korea and China and the similar composition of the operation of a play in the play unfold in completely different directions as seen above.
This is due to the difference in the writer’s consciousness or historical consciousness between the two writers. Kim Myung-gon restored the narrative hidden by the ruling power in the theater history and tried to recognize the history from a variety of perspectives, not from a balanced or unidirectional perspective. Tian Qinxin equates life and death throughout the play, and focuses on the flow of consciousness of the characters, dispelling the sharp debate between reality and history. These fundamental differences in the reality and historical perception of the two writers also make a huge difference in the portrayal of history in the play.