• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
• /
• v.17 no.4
• /
• pp.532-540
• /
• 2017

This study analyzes and compares the meaning and the value of storytelling with characteristics of the Playback Theatre, which is an improvisational play. On one side, the Playback Theatre, invented by Jonathan Fox in 1975, is an improvisational and communication-based theatre format; and it usually brings in the storytelling of audiences and often entails no play script. On the other side, storytelling requires imagination and creativity; presupposes the sympathy between the speaker and the listener. In fact, this theatre format is utilizing the educational and healing effects of verbal cultures, group sacrificial ceremonies, and/or psychodrama; and it is contextualizing them in our modern society. The Playback Theatre provides the audiences with opportunities to share their own stories within the play itself. The actors first listen to the stories of audiences; and then make them into a play impromptu, right in front of the speaker(s) and other audiences. For this very reason, it is called a "play-back". In this process, the individuals and the community are invited to experience the educational and healing effects.