Jaha Koo’s One-Man Show Marries Food, Memory and Rootlessness

South Korean performer Jaha Koo presents a solo production at Festival theatre studio in Edinburgh that runs until 24 August. The piece blends music, animation and live cooking at a makeshift pojangmacha (street-food snack bar). As the audience watches, Koo prepares a cucumber starter, a kimchi pancake, a soup and a sea-grass-mint-lime pudding, each dish punctuating a segment of the narrative.

The Guardian

Koo, who left South Korea for Europe fifteen years ago, uses the performance to articulate the sense of alienation that accompanies long-term migration. The review highlights a moment when an assistant backstage complains of a “stench of garlic,” a remark that underscores the subtle racism Koo encounters while abroad. This incident is presented as a rare dark note amid the otherwise cheerful tone of the show.

The Guardian

Food functions as both a personal anchor and a conduit for collective history. Koo recalls his father’s aversion to fried chicken after smelling the corpses displayed following the 1980 Gwangju pro-democracy uprising, a trauma that drove his father back to the countryside.

The Guardian

The Guardian’s review frames the production as a “slight but sweet” one-man show that succeeds in turning ordinary street food into a vehicle for exploring diaspora, community and resilience. While the performance is largely light-hearted, the inclusion of the racist comment and the Gwangju memory adds depth, suggesting that food can both soothe and remind audiences of painful histories.

The Guardian