Theatre review: P’yongyang

How do you solve a problem like Korea?

Hot on the heels of You For Me For You, which looked at the more surreal elements of the North Korean dictatorship through a fantasy lens, In-Sook Chappell's subject is the restrictions on free expression and the country's rigid class system, through the medium of an old-fashioned star-crossed love story. Spanning three decades, P’yongyang introduces Chi Soo (Chris Lew Kum Hoi) and Eun Mi (Anna Leong Brophy) as teenagers, when he's the handsome and popular jock and she's mousy and reserved, but both share the same ambition: To be accepted into the performing arts high school, and eventually write or star in the propaganda-filled films shown in their local cinema. But their situations are quickly reversed when the school does a background check and Chi Soo discovers what his parents (Daniel York and Lourdes Faberes) have been keeping from him: His father was originally from South Korea, which makes him and the next three generations of his family part of the "hostile class," not to be trusted. While "core class" Eun Mi gets a new life in P’yongyang, Chi Soo's only option is down the coal mines with his father.