Bella Merlin, professor of theatre, film, and digital production (TFDP) at UC Riverside, brought her production of “Tilly No-Body” to the 15th annual Daejeon International Play Festival in South Korea. Along with two nearly sold-out performances on August 4 and 5, the trip marked a significant step in UCR’s global presence in the arts and Merlin’s commitment to cross-cultural artistic dialogue and international performance touring. 

“It is profoundly meaningful to showcase UCR’s commitment to practice-based research in the arts,” Merlin said. “Tilly No-Body” delves into the life and mindset of Tilly Wedekind, an actress and wife of German playwright Frank Wedekind, in a blend of original songs, personal letters, and the Wedekinds’ autobiographies.

The road to Daejeon for Merlin began in fall of 2022 when Keunpyo “Root” Park, associate professor and chair of TFDP, shared the application for the festival. Merlin had just performed “Tilly No-Body” at Shakespeare & Company in Massachusetts and at UCR. Merlin’s play caught the attention of Jinyoung Youn, director of the Daejeon festival, who invited the production for the 2024 year.

Merlin reached out to CHASS Dean Daryle Williams and Rodolfo Torres, professor of mathematics and the vice chancellor for the research and economic development office at UCR, to secure additional funding for the trip. Merlin invited Park to join the trip as a filmmaker and cultural liaison for the “Tilly No-Body” South Korea productions. In support of the opportunity, the Office of the Dean acknowledged its significance for performing arts and the work of Merlin and the creative team involved.

“After meeting with Professor Torres and elucidating the importance of sharing, internationally, UCR’s unique contributions to performance-based research, he generously supported the necessary funds to include Professor Park on our team,” Merlin said.

In addition to Park, Merlin was accompanied by a “dream team” of UCR faculty and staff members and close colleagues. From UCR’s TFDP department, Ben Tusher, TFPD’s production manager and resident lighting designer, and Johnny Macias, assistant production manager, joined the trip to South Korea. “With both Ben and Johnny at the heart of the team, I knew we were in excellent shape,” Merlin said.

Merlin’s husband, Miles Anderson, is the director and collaborator on “Tilly No-Body” and Tusher’s wife, Caitlin Guyan, was the production’s technical director.

In preparation for the festival, one of the key challenges Merlin faced was adapting “Tilly No-Body” for a Korean audience, especially as the play explores deeply personal and emotional themes.

“Embodied storytelling through live theatre is extremely important to me as an actor,” Merlin said. “Part of the research for this trip was whether ‘Tilly No-Body’ could and would resonate for audiences where English is not the first language.”

Park translated the play into Hangul, the Korean alphabet and writing system, and provided and operated the subtitles during the performances. Despite her initial concerns, Merlin found that the play’s emotional depth overcame language barriers. 

“It was truly thrilling to hear the audience gasp and laugh at various points, to share the dramatic tension in the space during various moments, and, in the second performance, to hear them actually clap along with the circus music,” Merlin said.

“As with all acting, plays require a lot of physical preparation, so performing overseas is a huge challenge, but being able to work together in a shared space with audiences from different cultures is an advantage unique to performing arts, including plays,” Park said. “I was able to see how much the Korean audience and our UCR team had longed for this kind of cultural contact through live performance.”

Park, who also filmed the performances, plans to edit the footage into a documentary overview covering the Daejeon festival experience. According to Park, the documentary will take several months to complete.

In post-show discussions, the audience also engaged with Merlin more closely, asking questions and sharing reflections about the play’s themes, and key moments. 

For Merlin, one thought-provoking moment came when one audience member commented on Tilly Wedekind’s loss of self-identity in the context of domestic abuse, asking whether Merlin had any experience in similar circumstances. According to Merlin, she gently stepped into the topic’s vulnerable space, recalling her experience at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women where she had presented a filmed version of “Tilly No-Body”, where sharing her own story opened the door for others to speak out about their experiences with domestic abuse.

“There’s no question, the creative arts serve vital roles in shaping, through language and structure, the chaos of lived experiences,” she said. “This is where my creative activities and research as a professor and as an actor really feel resonant and valuable.”

As part of the festival, Merlin also led an acting workshop for 14 Korean actors, which Park also filmed. 

“It was thrilling to see how playful, inventive, emotionally expressive, and sensitive the group of 14 young actors were willing to be,” Merlin said. “My key takeaway in collaborating with these new peers was how exciting cross-cultural dialog is and how much I learn about my own acting and actor training by experiencing the imaginations of international collaborators.”

Merlin is driven to continue future international performances of ‘Tilly No-Body’ and opportunities for UCR to continue stepping into the international theatre. 

“On the cards are taking ‘Tilly No-Body’ to the Mono-Drama Festival in Seoul in March 2025, and possibly taking colleague Professor Rickerby Hinds’ hip-hop play, ‘Dreamscape,’ to the Daejeon International Play Festival next year,” she said.

“I think the reason we make plays and films is to share diversity for a better world,” Park said, “We should keep doing this!” 

Merlin is currently in the United Kingdom performing in Lucy Gough’s play “The Wild Tenant,” and hopes to take “Tilly No-Body” to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival or the Dublin Fringe Festival in 2025.

“There is a vibrant international theatre world out there, sharing vocabularies, crossing cultural and linguistic ‘barriers,’ and uniting artists and audiences ‘in-the-moment’ experiences and dialogues,” she said. “Whatever we can do to contribute to collective understanding and empathy, compassion and peace, I’m up for it.”

FEATURED PHOTO. Bella Merlin as Tilly Wedekind with a ball and trunk during a performance of "Tilly No-Body" / Image courtesy of Bella Merlin.