ABSTRACT
HAN SANG-CHUL The end and the beginning of a century gave special meaning to the Korean
theatre. Under the military government, the Korean theatre, as a movement
for democratisation, had struggled for years for democracy and the restitution
of human rights against the repressive dictatorial regime. The military regime
had finally collapsed in the mid 90s, but in 1997 the new democratic
government, named ‘Mun-min’, was confronted with a national economic crisis.
An IMF loan to Korea was necessary to ward off economic collapse. As a
