On the occasion of planning a seminar on (German-language) documentary theatre, I thought that collecting what I know about the activities of Rimini Protokoll in Korea, one of the most representative current collectives in this field, might be a good idea (even though they might not call their work “documentary”, and what does that mean anyway?).
The productions of Stefan Kaegi, Helgard Haug, and Daniel Wetzel, who work together or in various constellations under the collective label “Rimini Protokoll” (rendered in Korean as 리미니 프로토콜), are diverse and go beyond what most would consider “proper” theatre. They cast amateurs (or rather “non-actors”), regular people also known as “experts of the everyday”, who use their professional skills to perform themselves and talk about their experiences in a specific field. Many early productions were composed around a certain theme, such as the death industry in Deadline (Haug / Kaegi / Wetzel, 2003), with a funeral speaker, a funeral musician, a stone mason etc., or the legal system in Zeugen! ein Strafkammerspiel (Haug / Kaegi / Wetzel, 2004), featuring a lawyer, a lay judge, a courtroom attendant, and others.
Some productions take place outside of the theatre, in the form of walks, or in the borderland between inside and outside, like Torero Portero (Kaegi, 2001), where we, sitting in a lobby, see across a display window three concierges (porteros) from Córdoba perform on the street Other productions actively involve the audience (more on that later). The themes tackled are timely, sometimes documentary, sometimes based on pre-existing dramatic or non-dramatic texts, always thought-provoking and memorable. Many theatre productions saw another day as radio plays, putting the focus on the stories and experiences told, yet all of Rimini Protokoll’s works deal – in one way or another – with the theatricality of social life, too. Every court is a stage and the graveyard serves as setting of our last acts.
Their earliest specifically dealing with Korea is Black Tie (Haug / Wetzel, 2008), in which the stage is offered to journalist and South Korean adoptee Miriam Stein, who discusses and performs her search for roots. This insightful and moving solo show about a highly personal theme (here is an earlier post, including a link to a full video) was not shown in Korea, but Rimini Protokoll certainly are no strangers there.
Rimini Protokoll is well-known in South Korea, not only in theatre circles but also in the art world, thanks to several appearances in exhibitions, for instance with screenings of 100% Gwangju and 100% Amsterdam as part of the Nam June Paik Art Center 10th Anniversary Commemorative Exhibition “#Art #Commons #NamJunePaik” in 2018 (see photo below). Earlier – maybe for the first time in Korea? – their “intercontinental phone play” Call Cutta in a Box (콜 커타 인 어 박스, Haug / Kaegi / Wetzel, 2008) was part of the “Now Jump”-festival at Nam June Paik Art Center (백남준 아트센터) in 2008. Most recently, the jellyfish installation win > < win (Kor. 승 > < 승, Haug / Kaegi / Wetzel, 2017) waas shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art Busan (부산현대미술관) in the exhibition “Posteriority” (그 후, 그 뒤, Oct. 29, 2021–March 1, 2022), in cooperation with a local aquarium and voice-over provided by musical singer Zev Choi (최재림, see an interview video on Youtube) .
Video installation of 100% Gwangju, Nam June Paik Art Center, 2018
Besides art exhibitions, I know of three times that full-scale productions by Rimini Protokoll where shown in Korea:
Karl Marx: Capital, Volume One (2009)
In 2009, Karl Marx: Capital, Volume One (Karl Marx: Das Kapital, Erster Band, 칼카를 마르크스: 자본론 제1권, Haug / Wetzel, 2006) was invited to Seoul for Festival Bo:m. I wasn’t in Korea at that time and couldn’t see it myself, but there are two peculiarities about this guest performance that I can glance from archival material: First, an “Asian version” of the stage set is mentioned (produced first for a guest performance in Japan the month before in Tokyo, which is, as Rimini Protokoll’s website notes, an “adapted version”). Comparing a five-minute archival video (DA-Arts) with photos and videos from performances elsewhere, I could not find distinct differences. I assume that the original stage set was just too heavy to send to Asia (other guest performances took place throughout Europe only) and had to be recreated in Japan.
screenshot from Karl Marx, Capital, Volume One, Seoul (March 28, 2009, via DA-Arts)
screenshot from Karl Marx, Capital, Volume One, presumably Berlin, HAU2 (2007, via Vimeo)
Second, Gang Shin Joon (강신준), first Korean translator of Marx’ Capital, was included in the cast (his name is mentioned – in bold – in the festival program in the Korean description of the production but does not appear in the cast list). In the video, we see Gang reading quotes from his Korean translation of The Capital (자본, 도서출판 길, other translators also used 자본론, lit. “Capital Theory”), usually spoken by another performer, economist and Marx-expert Thomas Kucynski (1944–2023) in German.
Karl Marx’ Capital in Gang Shin Joon’s translation
The Korean text is also shown on a projection screen, but as Gang highlights the (Korean) page number in question (p. 845, the book he is referring to is volume I-2, with a Manet painting on the cover, see photo), it seems audience members have their own books, too, like the Reclam books distributed in the German performance. Apparently, Gang was added as another on-stage translator, with Franziska Zwerg (Russian-German translator) is also present. Gang is thus included in the cast both as an expert on the subject matter, as well as a mediator for the Korean audience.
100% Gwangju (2014)
The next time Rimini Protokoll was in Korea was in 2014, but this time not in Seoul (as all others), but in Gwangju, way in the south of the peninsula. Before opening, the Asia Culture Center (국립아시아문화전당) there had commissioned a production of the “100% City”-format, which led to 100% Gwangju (100% 광주, Haug / Kaegi / Wetzel). Originally conceived in Berlin (100% Berlin premiered in 2008, I saw the anniversary remake 100% Berlin Reloaded on a student trip in 2020), this format features 100 demographically selected citizens of the respective city who share the stage to perform their own demographics, experiences, and opinions, acting as representatives – in the case of Gwangju, 14,169 each.
100% Gwangju (2014), photo: Ahn Gab Joo
100% Gwangju was a huge, production, headed and coordinated in Gwangju by Soo-eun Lee (이수은), took five months of preparations, which included, like in all other cities, what must have been a complicated process of gathering the 100 performers:
100% Gwangju began with the casting of one member who had to recruit another in 24 hours, who then recruited another and so on – all according to specific criteria of age, gender, household type, geography and ethnicity mirroring the demographic make-up of Korea’s 6th biggest city
100% Gwangju (2014), photo: Ahn Gab Joo
The final production was shown two times in Gwangju, as well as two more times at the National Theater in Seoul. A full video with English subtitles can been seen online (Vimeo).
100% Gwangju (2014), photo: Ahn Gab Joo
The “100% City”-series is product of a globalizing theatre and festival culture, as well as possibly Rimini Protokoll’s most popular concept (in the same year 2014, it was produced in Darwin, Brussels, Paris, Riga, Philadelphia, and Amsterdam), yet the most locally-rooted one, too. It is an outside look on the city of Gwangju and, in some ways, South Korea as a whole by insiders who both present and represent their place of residence.
Stefan Kaegi, after a screening of Uncanny Valley (2021, via 가상 정거장 Facebook page)
A screening (apparently) of a recording of Uncanny Valley (언캐니 밸리, Kaegi, 2018), a lecture by a cybernetic copy of German novelist Thomas Melle, took place at Virtual Station (가상정거장) on March 13, 2020. The event concluded with a (fittingly) virtual live talk with Stefan Kaegi (Youtube). In the midst of the pandemic, Kaegi was happy to hear applause – if only on record from the past, by the audience of the Munich Kammerspiele premiere that had been shown. His mention was, of course, followed by applause from the (Korean) live audience.
Conference of the Absent (2022)
In 2022, I had the chance to see Rimini Protokoll myself here (or not?) for the first time, at the Seoul Performing Arts Festival (서울국제공연예술제): Conference of the Absent (Konferenz der Abwesenden, 부재자들의 회의, Haug / Kaegi / Wetzel, 2021) is, like “100% City”, an internationally acclaimed and heavily touring, yet slightly simpler format. It consists of a series of talks, some 10–15 minutes each, presented in a standardized stage design (couch, plant, Hamlet’s skull etc.) on topics that relate to absence in the widest sense (from phantom limbs to undercover spies). The speakers are not present, though, and spectators stand in for them, speaking from their scripts or in-ear recordings, produced in the local language by local theatre staff, in the case of Korea listed as Gyohee Baek (백교희, assistant director), Yeonhee Cho (조연희, anchor voice), and Un-chul Baek, Ranhee Baek (백운철, 백란희, in-ear voice). An experiment in “remote directing”, no actor has to travel for this production, yet the experience of live “ghost-speakers” is also different from the virtual conferences via Zoom we have become accustomed to. A supercut of footage from various locations can be seen online (Vimeo).
For me, the talk by Holocaust-survivor Solomon “Sally” Perel, who told (embodied by a volunteer) his story of pretending to be “Hitler youth” while disappearing as a jew, was the most impressive one and a welcome throwback to his visit at my high school some 25 years ago. Even though it was not his own voice we heard (and in Korean), it was nice to know that this great speaker was still alive (sadly, as I just found out, he passed away soon after in early 2023).
The impersonation of speakers by various local volunteers worked quite well in our case, though I heard from students who visited another performance, that most volunteers were acting majors, a funny twist on the concept of non-actors. In any case, by widening the focus from representation to presence itself, the production offers much food for thought and as a methodological tool might be an interesting way to reduce travel to academic conferences, too.
Most recently, a revival of sorts of Karl Marx: Capital, Volume One was shown as part of the Ob/Scene Festival (Nov. 21–22, 2023, Kim Hee-su Art Space). Described as a lecture performance meant as a retrospective look on what happened since 2009, the 90-minute event featured three persons – besides Gang Shin Joon, the veteran translator who participated in the 2009 performance, singer-activist Chora Chorion (초라 초륜, on Medium and Bandcamp) and theatre maker Yoon Hansol (윤한솔) of ensemble Green Pig (극단 그린피그). As the show was sold out quickly, I didn’t have a chance to hear more about Rimini Protokoll’s stage debut in Seoul, unfortunately.
Karl Marx: Capital, Volume One (lecture performance), photo by 정길우, via Facebook
Korean-language bibliography on Rimini Protokoll
There is much to read on Rimini Protokoll (see a list of books on their homepage, many more research articles have been published, too, in German, English, and other languages), and during the last years, Korean academics have contributed various journal articles, some of which are listed here (Latin spellings of names and title translations are by the authors; the links often provided English or German abstracts; I haven’t checked for book chapters, reviews, or other writings yet):
- 김형기 (Kim, Hyung-Ki), “일상의 퍼포먼스화 – 혹은 뉴 다큐멘터리 연극 – 리미니 프로토콜의 연출작업을 중심으로” (Die Performativierung des Alltags – oder das neue Dokumentartheater – unter der besonderen Berücksichtigung der Inszenierungsarbeit von ‘Rimini Protokoll’), 헤세연구 24 (2010): 339–361. (link)
- 김성희, “극단 리미니 프로토콜과 다큐멘터리 연극” (Rimini Protokoll und das dokumentarische Theater), 브레히트와 현대연극 25 (2011): 141–165.
- 유봉근 (Bong Keun Yoo), “독일 예술경영과 문화민주주의 – ‘리미니 프로토콜’을 중심으로” (Kunstmanagement und Kulturdemokratie in Deutschland unter besonderer Berücksichtigung von “Rimini Protokoll”), 독일언어문학 70 (2015): 431–454. doi: 10.30947/zfdsl.2015..70.431 (link)
- 김정숙 (Kim, Jeong Suk), “의료인문학 분야의 다큐멘터리 연극 활용가능성에 대한 시론 – 리미니프로토콜 (Rimini Protokoll)을 중심으로” (Utilization of Rimini Protokolls documentary theatre in the Medical Humanities), 한국연극학 56 (2015): 375–406. doi: 10.18396/ktsa.2015.1..011 (link)
- 이예은, “‘포스트-브레히트’ 연극의 환원불가능성 구현 – 리미니 프로토콜의 <100% 광주>를 중심으로” (Study on the Realizing of Non-Reductionism in Post-Brechtian Plays – Focusing on <100% Gwangju> of Rimini Protokoll), 한국연극학 62 (2017): 185–210. doi: 10.18396/ktsa.2017.1.62.006
- 임형진 (Im Hyoung-jin), “과학혁명과 연극 패러다임의 변환 – 타자의 정체성과 몸의 반증가능성 -리미니 프로토콜<블랙 타이 Black Tie>(2008)” (Scientific Revolutions and Transformation of Theatre Paradigm -Identity of the Other and Falsifiablity of the Body – Rimini Protokoll’s < Black Tie >(2008)), 드라마 연구 55 (2018): 67–96. doi: 10.15716/dr.2018..55.67 (link)
- 백영주 (Baik, Youngju), “포스트 프로덕션으로서 현실주의 연극－리미니 프로토콜의 <죽음 뒤에 남는 것－아무도 없는 방>과 <상황실>의 체계성” (Reality of Theater as Postproduction Phase – Structural Analysis on Rimini Protokoll’s Nachlass – Pièces sans personnes and Situation Rooms: A multi player video piece), 한국연극학 73 (2020): 147–186. doi: 10.18396/ktsa.2020.1.73.005 (link)
- 백영주(Baik, Youngju), “안드로이드 연극 <언캐니 벨리>의 사이성 – 메타시스로서 현실주의 연극” (In-betweenness of Theater as Metaxis: Rimini Protokoll’s Android Performance Uncanny Valley), 한국연극학 81 (2022): 205–246. doi: 10.18396/ktsa.2022.1.81.006 (link)
— 22 Nov. 2023 (水)
Korean information on the works shown in Korea:
- 리미니 프로토콜, 카를 마르크스 자본론 제1권, 아르코예술극장 대극장, 2009년 3월 27~28일, 페스티벌 봄.
- 리미니 프로토콜, 100% 광주, 2014년 5월 19~20일, 광주문화예술회관 대극장, 2014년 5월 26~27일, 국립극장 해오름극장.
- 리미니 프로토콜, 부재자들의 회의, 대학로예술극장 소극장, 2022년 10월 20~23일, 서울국제공연예술제. (link)
- 리미니 프로토콜, 칼 마르크스: 자본론 제1권 (렉처 퍼포먼스), 김희수아트센터 Space 1, 2023년 11월 21~22일, 옵/신 페스티벌. (link)
Seoul Stages 