PhD. Bomi Choi (Lecturer at University College London)
This article examines how theatres of migration in the professional sphere intervene in contemporary social issues around Asian immigrants in multicultural South Korea. Of those from other Asian countries, Ranui ilgi (Ran’s Diary, 2011) concerns female marriage migrants, confronting its non-migrant South Korean spectators with an uncomfortable and neglected reality of the migrant women’s cross-border marriages with ethnic South Korean men. Along with a specific focus on the group of marginalized Asian others in the country, the sexually suggestive mise-en-sce`ne particularly calls the attention of the audience. In this article, I first offer a brief overview of the societal backgrounds and effects of an unprecedented influx of Asian brides into South Korea, a country with a long-held fetish for ethnic homogeneity. Then, I analyze Ran’s Diary in terms of the play’s critical perspective on inter-Asian marriages, its strategic focus on and staging of a sexually victimized female Asian migrant character, and the authentic as well as culturally conscious representation of lived experiences of those immigrants in the host country. In my conclusion, I argue that this sexually-charged performance functions as a protest against the dominant public, generating a counterpublic discourse.
Bomi Choi received her PhD in Drama and Theatre Studies, with a focus on the nexus of migrants and theatre, from Royal Holloway University of London in 2022. Her recent publications include an article in Performance Research which explores the theatrical use and reception of Zainichi memory in Yakiniku Dragon (2008). She currently teaches at University of London (Birkbeck, Royal Holloway).
Salad: Asian Immigrants and Theatre in Multicultural South Korea
Produced by the multicultural theatre company Salad in South Korea, Ranui ilgi (Ran’s Diary, written and directed by Park Kyong-ju) premiered in May 2011 at the Box Theater of the Seoul Art Space Mullae—a space for contemporary and experimental arts. (For detailed information, please refer to the link below for paid services; Asian Theatre Journal, vol. 41, no. 1 /Spring 2024. © 2024 by University of Hawai‘i Press. All rights reserved.)
PARK KYONG JU 