Documenting War Crimes Onstage in Kyo Choi’s The Apology

Abstract

This essay discusses Kyo Choi’s play The Apology, which was first produced in London in 2022, as an example of activist theatre, meant not only to educate British audiences about the ongoing controversies over the so-called “comfort women” issue, involving Japanese military sexual slavery during World War II, but to move viewers to action. Choi’s drama does so through a form of emotional documentation, which supplements and amplifies actual documents related to this war crime.