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초록

Situated between the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the Sixth Mass Extinction, the posthuman has become a pivotal concern in contemporary discourse. Theoretical approaches to the posthuman are commonly divided into two divergent strands: transhumanism and critical posthumanism. While the former frames the vulnerability of the human body as a biological limitation to be addressed through technological enhancement, the latter considers it a fundamental condition for reflecting on the ecological interdependence of all living beings. Typically, theater has been perceived as less suitable for the science fiction genre due to its spatiotemporal boundaries and technological constraints on staging digital effects, particularly when compared to novels or films. Yet, the performative essence of theater—its capacity to generate open-textured signification through embodied presence—offers a compelling vantage point from which to reconsider prevailing conceptions of the human and the world. Building on this premise, this study explores posthuman imaginaries in two plays by Tomohiro Maekawa [前川知大]—Before We Vanish (散歩する侵略者, 2005) and The Sun (太陽, 2011)—through the lens of critical posthumanism. The analysis unfolds in three main parts. The first part reframes the philosophical foundations of posthuman subjectivity and relational ontology, drawing on Rosi Braidotti’s posthuman trilogy. The next two sections examine how Maekawa’s plays unsettle binary distinctions between self and other, narrativizing transversal encounters among heterogeneous beings. The final section focuses on the media adaptations of these plays into film, novel, and television drama and evaluates the achievements of Creative Company LAS’s theatrical production of Before We Vanish (2019) and Company SIGA’s dance performance of The Sun (2023). Ultimately, this study proposes that posthuman criticism—by engaging with a multiplicity of narratives and challenging dominant fictions of reality—functions as an interpretive intervention that not only responds to the urgency of the planetary condition but also participates meaningfully in the Harawayan project of “reworlding.”