A Conversation with Andreu Gomila and Rimini Protokoll

They are theatre directors but also anthropologists, documentary filmmakers, social researchers, communicators, political scientists, robotics engineers, etc. Over the last 20 years, Rimini Protokoll have helped the theatre break free from conventional settings and have breathed life into new theatrical formats. Their goal has been to forge new paths, break with the established parameters, change the operating system, jailbreak it, make it open source, as though it were a computer programme, to offer new definitions for the theatre. That is why their work takes on such diverse formats. They come up with proposals that break down not only theatrical walls, but also personal ones. It is not surprising, thus, that the stars of many of their plays are ordinary citizens, who are not professional performers, chosen for their knowledge or experience. As Stefan Kaegi explains, “It isn’t just about telling a story, or making a film while they’re telling that story. We reorganise their lives so that they will invent a new way of telling the story based on that particular format.”