Koro, a brand new production company specialising in immersive and interactive theatre, tours its critically acclaimed playable theatre piece, 1884, this autumn. The tour includes HOME Manchester, Warwick Arts Centre in Coventry, Carrow House in Norwich (as part of Norwich Theatre Beyond), and the Wellcome Collection in London. Created by a team of creatives led by award-nominated playwright, Rhianna Ilube, 1884 is an immersive game-theatre show inspired by the legacy of the 1884 Berlin Conference, an often-overlooked historical turning point for the African continent and the world.
Welcome to Wilhelm Street. Make yourself at home!
Taking place in a modern fictionalised setting named Wilhelm Street, 1884 isn’t a history lesson – it’s a fun, fast-paced, and thought-provoking journey where play and protest meet. Played around tables, participants form small family groups, collaborate on playful activities, and make choices about how to build their family community and make their house a home. However, as rules are gradually imposed on the groups and it becomes increasingly clear that not everything is within their control, they must decide how to respond. 1884 asks: how is history recorded, and who is left outside of the room where history is written?
Somewhere nearby, there’s a meeting going on. A very important meeting. Run by very important people. Making very important decisions about your lives. But you and your family are not allowed inside…
Co-created by artists, historians and activists, 1884 is a groundbreaking game-theatre show inspired by the impact and legacy of the 1884 Berlin Conference which contributed to the carving up of the African continent by colonial powers. The experience invites audience members to build a community and connect with strangers, ultimately exploring the ways in which anti-colonial resistance movements have been excluded from our public history and collective historical narrative, and how this omission highlights a glaring oversight in how we memorialise the impacts of colonialism.
We sat down co-creator, writer and project director Rhianna Ilube to learn more.
What can you tell me about 1884?
1884 is an immersive game-theatre show, created with a group of artists and the interactive-theatre company Coney in 2023, and now being produced by Koro. It is a 2-act show which takes the 1884 Berlin Conference as its starting point, and creates a fictional world in which audiences can explore the legacy of colonialism, memorialisation, protest, community solidarity and culture passed on across generations.
What inspired you to create this piece?
A range of things. Living in Berlin and learning about the conference for the first time, via witnessing the grassroots activism efforts happening in the city to document what happened. Attending various immersive shows, including ‘We Should All Be Dreaming’ by Sonya Iindfors and Maryan Abdulkarim, and feeling inspired by the surrealist scope and playfulness of that project. Attending a week-long workshop about immersive theatre in Bulgaria, which included an intense immersive workshop with artist Áron Birtalan about his practice of ‘Transformation Games’. A long-standing interest in documenting black European identity, following Johny Pitt’s book ‘Afropean: Notes from Black Europe’, and Cecile Emeke’s ‘strolling’ series. Long conversations about life, identity and history with one of my 1884 co-writers and collaborators, Tsitsi Mareika Chirikure. A post-pandemic desire - following a few years of making only digital games and shows - to create an immersive show that is almost completely analogue and in-person, creating a genuine possibility for community within it. Time spent within campaigning and activist communities. Anger with how little is documented or taught of African resistance history. A frustration with museum culture and Britain’s approach to our national past. Curiosity about audiences and what they can get up to, if given the chance.
 |
| Photo by Alex Brenner. |
How did you approach developing the idea for the show?
Coney gave me the freedom to bring together a group of artists I really respect, and we spent a week-long R&D brainstorming, learning, creating, and play-testing ideas. At the end of the week, we had created the structure of the show, as it still stands today. We tested it with an invited audience and the reaction was so exciting and electric in the room, so we kept on pushing and refining the concept over time.
The show is described as a game theatre show, how did you decide this was what you wanted to create?
I don’t think I decided consciously that this is what I wanted to make. I knew I wanted to create a show of two halves, where the second half creates an extreme jolt or jump in time. The concept of a ‘conference’ initially felt very interactive to me, but we actually decided to move away from recreating the conference in any literal sense. I also write ‘straight’ plays where there is minimal audience interaction (although I always like a bit of interactivity - I can’t help it), and so I wanted to push myself out of that box, to see how far my ability to create an interactive show might be.
I don’t think I decided consciously that this is what I wanted to make. I knew I wanted to create a show of two halves, where the second half creates an extreme jolt or jump in time. The concept of a ‘conference’ initially felt very interactive to me, but we actually decided to move away from recreating the conference in any literal sense. I also write ‘straight’ plays where there is minimal audience interaction (although I always like a bit of interactivity - I can’t help it), and so I wanted to push myself out of that box, to see how far my ability to create an interactive show might be.
What challenges did this possess in the writing process?
So much of the show is about time-management and responding to what the audience does, which will always be different every night. So it is not like a normal script - there are many gaps, and it relies on lots of playtesting, observing audiences, and getting to know the different ways people might ‘play’.
As the audience are involved with the show, this must make every show unique?
Yes! I watched it maybe 10 times last year, and no two shows were the same. I love that. But we do have a clear structure, many scripted moments and specific show ‘beats’ which remain consistent each night.
 |
| Photo by Alex Brenner. |
How important is the collaboration with theatre company Koro?
Without Koro, 1884 would not have been revived. I’m so happy we can collaborate. Marie - Koro’s Artistic Director - has been helping to shape and steer the project from that initial R&D with Coney in 2023. We’ve made lots of updates based on audience feedback and observations from last year, so it feels like a new, exciting phase of the project.
Without Koro, 1884 would not have been revived. I’m so happy we can collaborate. Marie - Koro’s Artistic Director - has been helping to shape and steer the project from that initial R&D with Coney in 2023. We’ve made lots of updates based on audience feedback and observations from last year, so it feels like a new, exciting phase of the project.
Whilst this isn't a history lesson, it does feature anti-colonialism, how much research did you have to do whilst developing these ideas?
Years of reading, thinking, attending events, discussions. We also brought in specific researchers and historians to dig into the conference and its legacies, and speak to our creative team and actors about their findings, to help us understand the material we were working on.
What was the first piece of theatre you saw that had a big impact on you?
Wow. There isn’t one piece of theatre. I was a huge reader growing up, and only got properly into theatre several years after leaving university, so I felt I had a lot to catch up on. Seeing Fairview by Jackie Sibles Drury in 2019 really blew my mind and made me want to be a playwright. I was struck by the theatricality, the layers upon layers, the twists and turns. My grandma used to get vouchers from the newspapers and take me to musicals growing up, which were happy memories. And I loved studying English at school. I wasn’t really great with Shakespeare, but I remember being obsessed with the YA novel ‘Skellig’ and I loved seeing its play adaptation on a school trip. I am writing a new play now, which -now I think about it properly - is partly just me continuing to riff upon the themes of Skellig. I really liked the magical realism of it, the chaotic angel. I also studied the ‘Talking Heads’ monologues for GCSE, by Alan Bennett. Those strange lonely characters have stayed lodged in my mind ever since. I literally think about those monologues almost every week… I don’t know why.
What keeps you inspired?
Reading novels, watching films, listening to music, reading and watching plays, talking to my friends, walking in nature, seeing work created by my friends and being part of writing communities. I’m obsessed with the contemporary classical composer Caroline Shaw at the moment - her albums and experimentalism in form are inspiring me daily.
What do you hope an audience member takes away from seeing the show?
I am not prescriptive in what I hope audience members take away. Maybe it will be a part of the history they didn’t know. It could be a feeling of surprise in how far they ‘played’. Or a new friend they made from their ‘household’. Or a joke they laughed at, or a moment of genuine outrage they felt. I would like audience members to have an emotional or visceral reaction at some point in the show, but I’m easygoing as to how these feelings manifest and when.
Where can audiences see the show?
1884 is touring to HOME Manchester Thursday 9th and Friday 10th October, Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry on Tuesday 14th and Wednesday 15th October, Carrow House as part of Norwich Theatre Beyond from Thursday 16th - Saturday 18th October, and London’s Wellcome Collection from Wednesday 22nd - Saturday 25th October.
For tickets and more information please visit www.koro.org.uk
 |
| Photo by Alex Brenner |
Post a Comment