Cargo Sofia: A Bulgarian Truck Ride through Dublin

Abstract

Reappropriating the iconography of “America” as portrayed in Melville's Moby-Dick, the New York-based Radiohole offers in Fluke what Steve Luber dubs a hyperreal performance. The hyperreal is also what happened to Sara Brady when she rode through Dublin with the international trio Rimini Protokoll as they reimagined the journey as a trek from Bulgaria to Ireland. The last Critical Act takes place in Tangier where Khalid Amine found Zoubeir Ben Bouchta's Lalla J'mila a negotiation of the terrains of law, gender, and “place-specific” theatre.

Postfictional Theatre, Institutional Aesthetics, and the German Theatrical Public Sphere

“…Rimini Protokoll needs little introduction. Their productions and concepts have been extensively described (Brady 2007;Jackson 2011;Mumford 2013;Cornish 2019) but they are various, multifaceted, and cannot be reduced to one form or format. Nevertheless, what links their projects is a concern with eliminating illusion or what is termed here "fiction."…”

Mobile Urban Drama – Setting the Stage with Location Based Technologies

“…Rimini Protokoll are also known for a different mobile play "Cargo Sofia" [4], where the scenes take place in a Bulgarian truck driving in the streets of Dublin. Here the users are loaded into the container of a cargo truck, and they experience the drive through a video projection with audio on the container wall coming from the cab showing small film clips mixed with dialogue between the two drivers (actors).…”

“…"Cargo Sofia" [4] has a storyline that develops relative to the route and locations visited, but the audience experience it only through a video projection shown in the dark container room, which resembles the traditional theatre arena, only smaller and driving around in the streets. Even though there are similarities to Mobile Urban Dramas, "Cargo Sofia" does not utilize the native city locations as scenography, the city is experienced only through a video feed on the wall, and there are no possibilities for individual (e.g.…”