“an interesting perspective on an otherwise seemingly black and white story”
The Apology, directed by Ria Parry, follows the lives of three women, each involved in the attempt to uncover the truth about ‘comfort girls’ during World War Two. An estimated 200,000 girls were taken, by deception or force, from their villages in Japanese-occupied countries, and imprisoned as sex slaves throughout the war, sanctioned by the Japanese government. This isn’t a part of history I’m especially familiar with, so the story itself was fascinating and horrifying.
The pace is a bit sloppy, and I’d say it could do with a twenty-minute haircut, but given it’s based on very true events I can see how it would feel harsh not to give all the characters enough time to flesh out their stories.
As well as the historical narratives, both during the war and in the nineties when the UN began its investigations, writer Kyo Choi also includes a personal narrative about a man (Kwong Loke) who was, to his understanding, forced to recruit ‘comfort girls’, and how he continued to live with himself after the war. It’s an interesting perspective on an otherwise seemingly black and white story: this man was neither evil nor good, and it’s an important reminder that history is rarely so clean-cut.
Performances are strong across the board, and Choi has done well to include a little levity in a fairly bleak story, giving a generous emotional range to all the characters. Priyanka Silva, the UN lawyer, played by Sharan Phull, is cringingly earnest at times, but that rings fairly true for her character, and even she cracks a joke once in a while.
The only real issue I had with the performances- and I’m ready to be told I’m wrong about this- is the accents: the three modern-day Korean characters all speak with Korean accents, whereas the young girl playing the younger self of a former ‘comfort girl’, speaks in received pronunciation. It’s fine to cast accent-blind, but given that that’s not the case for any other characters, I find it quite jarring and distracting.
TK Hay’s set design is simple and elegant: Floor and walls are covered in orderly paperwork, seemingly signifying the beaurocracy and white tape involved in any official decisions or changes. But it also evokes a paper trail: evidence, waiting to be found.
Ultimately, it’s a compelling and important story, and although a little baggy, the content of The Apology carries it through when the execution itself feels a little too sentimental, or a little drawn out.
“There are lovely moments of humour, juxtaposed with the darkness of Michael Crean’s evocative sound”
It’s quite apt that Tom Ratcliffe’s play “Evelyn” opens with a semi-grotesque, semi-comic re-enactment of a ‘Punch and Judy’ show. Set in a seaside town overlooking the North Sea, the action is constructed to provoke a mixture of outrage and guilty pleasure. We used to laugh at the puppet show, but modern sensibilities have forced it out of fashion. After all, when stripped down, who is Punch but a misogynistic old womaniser, who likes a drink, and who displays unashamed homicidal tendencies? Within fifteen minutes of a typical show the corpses mount up; including his child, his wife and a policeman thrown in for good measure.
Popular consensus has all but killed off the four-hundred-year-old tradition. But what Ratcliffe’s drama (based on actual events) points out is that the storyline is often repeated in real life. And in that real life, ‘popular consensus’ so easily becomes mob rule.
The surreal, albeit a touch confusing, quality generated by the Punch and Judy characters that pop up throughout the show, reveals the back story. Ten years earlier, Evelyn Mills witnessed her husband murder their child. She covered up for him, lied in court and presumably let him get off scot-free while she did time. We never really learn the fate of the murderous and abusive husband, but bizarrely it is Evelyn who is vilified. The villagers are furious that she was allowed to change her identity and be let back into society.
Meanwhile, in the present action, Sandra (Nicola Harrison) arrives in town just as the community concur that Evelyn is back in town. Fingers point at her. Understandably so, she’s an odd ball, claiming she’s from Reading, Ryde, Rochdale; whatever takes her fancy. Thinking she is going to be renting a private apartment she finds herself flat-sharing in a retirement village with dotty Jeanne (Rula Lenska). Sandra is emphatic she needs to be on her own but rapidly hooks up with local electrician Kevin (Offue Okegbe). Kevin’s sister, Laura (Yvette Boakye) bristles at the tryst.
There are bonds that unite the female characters together, focusing on concepts of motherhood and loss, but the performances fail to gel in the same cohesive way. Lenska is watchable, reminiscent of Joanna Lumley’s Patsy, but is carted off before her true relevance is realised. While there are hints of passive aggressiveness towards Harrison’s subtly portrayed Sandra, Boakye’s Laura is just aggressive. She represents the mob, while Okegbe’s Kevin gives Sandra the benefit of the doubt. Is love blind? Or is it everybody else, who cannot see beyond the hive mentality?
The question is never fully resolved. But we never fully engage in the outcome either. The performances lack the rich conviction needed to hit the target that Ratcliffe’s writing is aiming for, exploring some urgent and relevant topics while questioning society’s perception of justice, vigilantism, social media and collective coercion. There are lovely moments of humour, juxtaposed with the darkness of Michael Crean’s evocative sound (performed live by Crean), but the shift of styles distracts. The kitchen sink realism sits uncomfortably beside the ‘Commedia dell’arte’ exaggeration. The intention is crystal clear, but is muddied by its execution.
