독재의 폭력과 기억의 서사극: <죽음과 소녀>의 무대와 스크린

Abstract

In Death and the Maiden, the personal and the political are so intertwined that memory, truth, love, and violence are all on trial as the three characters circle each other with accusations, denials, and piercing questions. This dramatic discourse makes the audience suspend their disbelief if Death and the Maiden is intended as a historical document. However, Dorfman’s play and the movie directed by Polanski are less a record of injustices in the past than an attempt to imagine how such wrongs can be treated here and now by the audience. ‘How can the audience willingly suspend their disbelief in the theatrical politics?’ is a question for signifying the stage play Death and the Maiden of Ariel Dorfman and in its film adaptation of Roman Polanski. The audience take a chance on the theater by their anonymous desire for a political order that is reflected on the two deluded scapegoats. Dialectical reading of the play and its film adaptation helps us begin to think critically about the text and its socio-historical context. Dorfman’s mirror stage and Polanski’s conscientious adaptation reverse and reform the discursive formation of the new world order.