Haribo Kimchi Cooks Up Hearty Serving of Themes

Theatremaker Jaha Koo explores how food can be repressed emotion, history and curse in a satisfying visual and aural treat

- Clement Yong

The enduring image of this bittersweet telling of migration and the ways food both suffocates and stays on people's tongues may be its finale of a live-streamed, gyrating robotic eel smartly shot from floor level.

Or it could be of South Korean theatremaker Jaha Koo sprinting across the Esplanade Theatre Studio to hand out free somaek (a mix of soju and beer).

The preceding mood the work conjures is damper, more controlled and meditative, reminiscent of an Edward Hopper painting or Ryan Gosling steering the wheel in the film Drive (2011), with a toothpick in his mouth, backed by electronic synth music.

Koo turns mechanised overall loneliness and sadness into something more cosy with the setting of a South Korean late-night streetside food stall, or pojangmacha.

Under its kimchi-red canopy and armed with a row of sauces, he is the stall operator—preparing a four-course meal for two members of the audience—in exchange for their listening ear.