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Mourning for the May that I Wasn’t There in Gwangju

I love May. I love the roses that bloom on the walls of people’s houses in the alleyways, and I love the May sunshine filtering through the gentle waves of green after a long winter. But for my mentor in my first workplace in Gwangju, May was a season of extreme physical pain. I was in my 20s back then, and my youth could not make sense of how sorrows wreak havoc on one’s body. My mentor had been in Gwangju that May, and his body, already suffering from chronic disorders, buckled under the weight of survivor’s guilt.

Now, I am at an age when he passed away, and I sometimes find myself wondering about his pain and suffering. I do not know much about the May 18th in Gwangju, but the pain and suffering from that event led to my beloved, respected mentor passing away so quickly. I have lived with a strange, indescribable sense of weight in my heart since then. Perhaps I should know more about it. I remember my senior, so perhaps I owe it to him to remember that day, carved across his body and heart.

Interview with Koh Sunwoong, Producer of
“I Wasn’t There in Gwangju”

After its initial production as a commemorative performance for the 40th anniversary of the May 18th Democratic Uprising in 2020, “I Wasn’t There in Gwangju” was renewed and staged after four years. I met up with producer Koh Sunwoong (Artistic Director at Playfactory Mabangzen and Director of the Seoul Metropolitan Theater) for an interview. His gaze and words were penetrating, thick with the emotional ripple from the first performance.

• Cheon Yunhui

  A lot of time has passed since the May 18th Democratic Uprising. I attended the performance with my family, including teenagers, and although my partner and I are in our 40s and 50s, this is a history that we have yet to experience. I imagine that you must have given a lot of thought to the question of where you want to place this performance between historical and artistic reenactment, especially since most of the audience members are from generations that have not experienced the uprising.

• Koh Sunwoong

  When it comes to bringing historical facts and tragic materials to the audience of the present, there is always a great sense of responsibility and care that needs to be put into it. I believe that the most important thing in these works is the “essence” of the material; rather than glossing over the material at the surface level, we must strive to present new perspectives and clarify the perspective of the audience members. The essence of the Democratic Uprising is the voluntary participation of the citizens in the struggle for democratic restoration. We wanted to show the 10 days of history that happened in Gwangju through the genre of theater, but we did not want to make the performance a simple repeat of what was already said. We thus sought to capture with the most unflinching gaze the situation and the hearts that led these people to struggle and made that struggle inevitable for them.

• Cheon Yunhui

  What changed over the four years since the premiere?

• Koh Sunwoong

  Four years ago, we were still in the COVID-19 pandemic, and because of the need for masks, there was a sense of inevitable distance in the most important element of this performance: the participation of the audience members. All the performers from the premiere reprised their roles for this performance, and they grew so much over time. By channeling their growth into their roles, the performers imbue their characters with stability and deeply accept the hearts of the militia during the struggle. In that sense, the most significant change could be said to be the change in the gaze of the performers.

• Cheon Yunhui

  The performance was intended as a work of immersive theater, which bridges the gap between the performer and the audience, the stage and the auditorium, and invites the audience members into the performance. What is the role of the audience in the performance, and what was the ultimate vision that you wanted to realize with this performance?

• Koh Sunwoong

  “Audience participation” was the big theme of the performance. We planned it in such a way that the audience could feel, experience, and participate as a member of the militia rather than simply sitting and unilaterally letting the history of the 10-day struggle unfold in front of them. The emotional ups and downs that occur inside oneself are bound to be different when one is not simply watching events unfold in videos and photos but instead seeing someone else running away next to them, feeling the wind, and hearing batons crashing down on the protester next to oneself. This is obviously a theatrical setting, but we sought to imagine through this performance how one could place oneself into the emotions of the militia during the struggle—the slow boil of passion, the anger, and everything that led to the hearts of the militia members during that struggle. We designed the performance as a way for the audience members to experience Gwangju back then, the pain, and how one sought to hold onto the struggle within that pain. If our audience members could experience that emotion, even in the context of the theatrical environment, the memory would last much longer. The effects that the May 18th Democratic Uprising had on democracy are far more profound than we imagine. We hope that this work will help to correct ongoing attempts to distort the view of the May 18th Democratic Uprising and to convey the truth, so that we can connect the generation that experienced Gwangju with the current generation that did not.

• Cheon Yunhui

  In the first day’s performance, there was a scene that brought to mind the grand assembly in the fountain square during the uprising. The audience members were invited to speak, and a 65-year-old audience member who had experienced the uprising spoke. That was such a dramatic and profound moment for us. Was that a coincidence?

• Koh Sunwoong

  Indeed, it was not planned, and that made it all the more touching. According to that audience member, there was initially a strong wish not to recollect the memories of that uprising. They said they were led to take part in the performance because their daughter had reserved the ticket, and only after a long and painful deliberation on whether to actually show up. I felt the emotional turmoil that they must have gone through in that situation, and I was so much more thankful to them because I could imagine that pain. It must have been an emotional experience, meeting their old self from the uprising in the performance. What more meaning could this performance achieve? I imagine this is why that audience member thanked the performance for its realistic depiction of the struggle.

• Cheon Yunhui

  I saw the performers wiping their tears at the funeral for the fallen. We could see that they were very much into their roles. Given the subject matter, I imagine the production staff must have felt a sense of responsibility. How did you prepare for the performance?

• Koh Sunwoong

  We had a lot of long discussions with our writer. We visited the places associated with the uprising with our performers, looked up a lot of materials, and consulted experts. The performance includes a lot of reenactments of beatings and slogans, and we thought about how we could effectively show Gwangju in the space we conceptualized. We sought to integrate bold elements like music, dance, objects, and stage design to maintain the audience’s engagement without losing their interest.

  So many young people accepted their death back then. That makes it that much more painful to grasp. Their final stand at the Former Jeollanam-do Provincial Office building? Such a show of bravery, will, duty, and fidelity. I don’t think I would be able to do that, but they did, even though they were so young.

  We sought to think about the spirit and meaning of the May 18th Democratic Uprising, and at the same time, we sought to think about the essence of our work as creators and performers of theater. Because of that, and because our actors were so emotionally immersed in their roles as militia, it was very important for them to maintain control over their emotions and passion. The performance involves a lot of shouting, running, and falling over on the stage, so it can be quite dangerous. So, for the performers, they had to balance their safety with their sense of responsibility. The thing we emphasized the most in this performance was, “We have to overcome.” We have to overcome these overflowing emotions to focus on our attitudes and our mission as performers. I am deeply appreciative of everyone involved in the production because they have worked so hard and really gave their all.

• Cheon Yunhui

  I personally found the direction in expressing scenes of gunfire, anger, and death through silence, or silent movements, via dances and group movements quite striking.

• Koh Sunwoong

  That was only possible because we had such great choreographers and dancers. I am very thankful for them. Theater should be done as theater, so we depicted the scene of the protesters pushing back against the brutality of martial law in front of Chonnam National University’s main gate through soundless shouts and dances. If we had shouted in that scene, that would have been very tiring. By not saying anything, we leave the shouts to the imagination of our audience members. Borrowing from the nonverbal format allowed us to give our audience breathing room. If we just present information, the audience tends to look away. Even when there is a distance, and even when viewed with a cool head, theater can generate relaxation and movement. The task of the direction is to facilitate these things effectively.

• Cheon Yunhui

  In one of the scenes, the protesters sing together the song “Southbound Train.” The atmosphere is almost paradoxical, with how spirited that song is in the face of brutality. But I couldn’t help but think that this could have happened in reality. Is this a theatrical addition? Another scene I remember is the audience members building barricades with their chairs and joining the parade, hand in hand.

• Koh Sunwoong

  One cannot live in despair alone. When there is despair, I think there is a corresponding need for dance, songs, and energy. When one steps into that context, one sees the cycle of ups and downs and becomes more immersed in the context. If one does not rest, if one is only presented with despair, one’s mind moves away. One has to have fun, and that’s what theater is by nature. Our performers, including Hwang Yeong-hee, helped bring forth that joyful spirit in our audience members.

  In the parade where the people of Gwangju marched along the Geumnam-ro to the Provincial Office, a lot of thought went into how we could depict that march in the theater. I was very thankful that our audience members took part so actively, as if they were in that march on that May day. I felt that passion in the theater, and it took me beyond the confines of that space into that historical march.

• Cheon Yunhui

  Do you have a scene or a line that you really want the audience members to remember?

• Koh Sunwoong

  That would have to be the last words of the fighters in the Provincial Office. The sentence, “No futility shall be found in the things we have loved,” a quote from Lee Jeong-yeon included in the flyer, captures everything we wanted to say with the performance. More personally, the scene dearest to me is the memorial scene at the end involving the children and the dead. As the child grows up and becomes an old woman, the decades that pass over the conversations with the dead are skipped in timelapse-like scenes. I think that is a very theatrical scene, and I believe the lines of that child capture the most important messages of the performance for me. Just as the militia stare at the child, perhaps pleading with their gazes not to be forgotten, the candles are lit. All audience members join in lighting the candles as they exit the venue.

• Cheon Yunhui

  We could see that you put a lot of thought into the nature of artistic creation and the ways you can deliver the historical facts of the May 18th Democratic Uprising. Now, for the last question of this interview, how do you want the May 18th Democratic Uprising to be remembered?

• Koh Sunwoong

  Though it may be buried under the grand narrative, we have continuously emphasized over the performance that “We must overcome.” Even as we examined the idea of theater itself, we came to the thought that perhaps it is time to sublimate this terrible experience of the struggle and for us to let this pain and sadness go. The May 18th Democratic Uprising is ultimately a history of victory, and its effects on democracy in Korea cannot be denied. History is written by the later generations, so I think that we may be at a time when we must overcome this narrative of tragedy with the narrative of victory. Through the power of art, a sublimation of the theme or the content must take place. Perhaps we must overcome, overcome the sadness and anger.

The curtains fall, and back to reality

The performance ended with the same whirling power. As time went by, the child sitting back like a spectator took the father’s hand and moved closer to the stage. As the performance went on, more and more people stood with the militia, just as we had done. Some acts of participation were blocked for safety. Reality and performance blend into each other. The performance ends, and even though I wanted to return to the performance once more, the four-day performance had already sold out completely. I wanted to recollect and deepen the emotions, feelings, condolences, and remembrance that I found myself immersed in the theatrical context.

When the audience members step out of the incidental community that they had formed in the theater, they return to their lives, and perhaps the memories of the May 18th Democratic Uprising will fade again. But just as I remember my senior in my own way when May comes, I hope that this performance can do the same for the next generation. Thankfully, there is a plan for the Asia Culture Center (ACC) to continue this performance every May. When anyone comes to Gwangju in May, I hope that it will be for the performance “I Wasn’t There in Gwangju,” a space where the people of today can meet that space and time in 1980. I hope that it will always be there, just like a milestone, for us to reorient ourselves whenever our memories seem to fade.