Summerhall
Four stars
Any relationship that exists between Scotland and South Korea has lain largely undocumented until now. Cue this hugely ambitious collaboration between Glasgow’s Wonder Fools company and South Korea based Theatre SAN. After two years of sharing stories, the result is this epic family saga that crosses continents and generations to tell a tale of love and war.
It begins in 1918, with a ceilidh in full swing as the audience enter, before idealistic young missionary Dae Han arrives in a Glasgow still scarred from the effects of World War One. Here Dae Han meets Jane, who lives in the pub he is decamped to. Fast-forward half a century to 1970, and the older Jane is being interviewed by a young Korean woman about the connections between Scottish and Korean folk music. In-between, in 1951, Jane’s daughter Nancy embarks on a mission of her own in the thick of the conflict between North and South Korea. A reunion between Dae Han and Jane will take another twenty years.
Written and directed by Wonder Fools founders Robbie Gordon and Jack Nurse in collaboration with Korean writer/director Yoon Junghwan, the play bridges the personal plight of Dae Han and Jane with some of the global events that changed the world as much as the private lives affected by it. These range from the 1919 Battle of George Square in Glasgow, when striking workers were attacked by armed troops with tanks; to the fallout of the Korean War and prevailing divisions.
A cast of seven actors led by Isabella Jarrett as the older Jane combines talent from Scotland and South Korea to bring the story to life, with a six-piece band playing composer Stuart Ramage’s live score that similarly fuses Scots and South Korean influences.
Somehow all this is packed into an hour-long play that, while knitted together with an almost cinematic emotional narrative drive, is crying out to be expanded into a full on state of the nations saga it already resembles. This is already a big play full of heart and soul, however, and is one that evokes the everyday fallout of lives torn apart by circumstances not of their making in devastating fashion.
Until 31 Aug, 4.30pm.
The Herald, August 9th 2026
ends
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