Theatre / Reviews
Review: What Remains of Us, The Weston Studio, Bristol Old Vic – ‘A compelling story’
Borders. Boundaries. Family Loss. They are usually topical subjects, and none more so than now with the awful events unfolding in Eastern Europe, tearing entire families and communities apart.
What Remains Of Us is about another conflict on a different continent, in this case one of the most militarised borders in the world on the 49th parallel between authoritarian North Korea and its southern neighbour.
Events are set in 2000 when the Red Cross facilitated heavily state-regulated meetings between family members who had been separated for 50 years.
is needed now More than ever
Over a period of three days and six scheduled meetings lasting just 12 hours Seung-Ki has the chance to see her father Kwan-Suk for the first time since she was just three years old.
What can they say to each other? Will they recognise each other? Will the boundaries be just too wide?
For a subject as intense and unique as this, the drama unfolds in ways other than the spoken word and the sparse script by David Lane is fleshed out by director Sita Calvert-Ennals to incorporate a multi-media concoction.
Jung Sun Den Hollander in What Remains Of Us at The Weston Studio, Bristol Old Vic (2022) – photo: Kirsten McTernan
We first meet Kwong Loke as the father and Jung Sen den Hollander as grown-up daughter while they falteringly look for each other in a bland conference space, their bodies twisting and bending awkwardly, with pained expressions on their faces as they try to spot numbers on lapels indicating their family connection.
In a way they are reduced to mere numbers with nothing to connect them but a shared history which has been shattered by a lifetime apart. The initial greeting is ill at ease and the gap seems too great to bridge.
Whereas Seung-Ki has striven for years to find her long lost father and she has always remained faithful to the hope that he would one day return to her, it is painfully apparent that her father has resolved to give up the past to try to make the most of his present.
His frequent lauding of the achievements of the totalitarian state he now calls home and of its ‘Glorious Leader’ serve as a barrier to her attempts to reach out to him. The reunion looks doomed to failure, while the intelligence agencies and global media peer at them with cool detachment.
Kwong Loke in What Remains Of Us at The Weston Studio, Bristol Old Vic (2022) – photo: Kirsten McTernan
The design by Lulu Tam featuring the sterile hotel conference facility and characterless bedroom is complemented by imaginative use of sound by Duncan Speakman with eerie almost dystopian sounds by composer Jae-Moon Lee splitting scenes and allowing the choreography to flow. Movements between the two excellent performers are strained, and at times confrontational and demonstrably lacking in affection.
There are moments when some of this feels overdone. The various date lines displayed on a screen behind the actors are often superfluous while at times the physicality behind the message of looking across boundaries becomes rather strained.
And there is a curious moment when a tray of drinks disappeared up into the gantry which seemed to serve no purpose at all apart from removing them from the set.
However, when the drama turns to ways in which the characters seek a connection that must exist between blood family, a powerful range of passions is released.
Jung Sun Den Hollander and Kwong Loke in What Remains Of Us at The Weston Studio, Bristol Old Vic (2022) – photo: Kirsten McTernan
Father and daughter share a sense of humour after all, and despite the concerns that they are being watched, their own physical and emotional guards are dropped, and mementoes are passed and accepted.
There is a bigger hurdle to cross, with the daughter finding it extremely difficult to accept some details of her father’s new life, but ultimately this too is straddled, if not quite overcome.
What Remains Of Us is a compelling and ultimately sad story of loss and resilience which shows that humanity can triumph when there are no frontiers to confine love.
What Remains of Us is at the Weston Studio, Bristol Old Vic on March 3-12 at 8pm, with matinee shows on Thursday at 1pm and Saturday at 3pm. Tickets are available at www.bristololdvic.org.uk.
Main photo: Kirsten McTernan
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