Sell Me: I Am from North Korea – Pleasance Courtyard (Below)

Jisun is poor. She sells apples at a market in North Korea. Sometimes she even kills squirrels to eat. But she needs more money. Her mother is dying and can’t afford medication to ease her pain. So, on her 15th birthday Jisun decides to sell herself. A broker says he will help her escape to China. She’ll be sold to a man and will have to look after him. Her duties will include washing his dirty underwear, cutting his toe nails and “making babies with him”.

That’s the explosive starting point to this remarkable play, written and performed by Sora Baek. And if you think it sounds implausible, you should know that Baek’s grandparents and her father, then aged 4, were refugees from North to South Korea. Baek has also been inspired by true stories of women defectors from the most authoritarian country on the planet.

Jisun and five other women make the perilous journey across a river into China. But none of the men want to buy Jisun. A late developer, she’s often mistaken for a boy. They humiliate her, abusing her by pulling down her underwear.

So now she has no money and is an illegal immigrant in China. Eventually she sees a Christian church – unlike North Korea, Christianity is tolerated in China – and is provided with a bed and food.

Jisun reads the first of the Ten Commandments from a Bible: “Thou shalt have no other gods except me”. And it’s remarkably similar to the rules she’s been taught in North Korea where she had to prostrate herself daily before photographs of the Supreme Leader, Kim Jong Un.

In a flashback, Jisun remembers soldiers coming into the family home, dragging her father away with them. Later she’s told he’s died in an accident.

Jisun recalls tales she’s heard about Christians feeding people until they grow fat so they can kill them and eat their livers. So, she runs away from her Christian benefactors.

But now what’s going to happen to her? We find out in a stunning and emotionally charged climax.

Sorak Baek is a charismatic performer. To say it’s a tour-de-force is an understatement. Baek commands our attention from her first entrance. She tells the story brilliantly, focusing mainly on Jisun but shifting effortlessly to other characters that the 15-year-old encounters such as her best friend and a customer in the market. It’s a superbly nuanced performance which not only tugs at the heartstrings but is also at times very amusing. She lives every moment, inhabiting the soul of Jisun, as well as conveying the essence of the minor characters in brief cameos. There’s nothing contrived. It’s a searingly truthful performance. And her ability to shift from one emotion to another and always be totally convincing is impressive. We believe her when she laughs, and when she cries. And it’s not just that the tears are real but that she is completely immersed in what the character is experiencing

It’s a performance of great physicality, too. She not only sings and dances, but her movement is outstanding. Yet she also holds our attention with her stillness.

The performance is mainly in English, but she sometimes speaks Korean, usually just a sentence or two but sometimes more. But her acting is so good that we can get the gist of what she says even when she’s speaking Korean.

Baek is helped by the fabulous script she herself wrote. It’s beautifully written, often very spare English. When needed, it’s more expansive but no words are wasted.

Dramatic photos and videos projected onto the backcloth enhance the tension. Evocative music, chosen by Baek herself, and effective sound effects and lighting complement this outstanding production.

This is the epitome of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe – one person performing a self-written play in a small space – in this case seating 55 people. All done on a low budget with a minimalist black box set.

A must-see show.

Playing until 25th August, https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on#q=Sell me  

Reviewer: Tom Scott

Reviewed: 2nd August 2024

North West End UK Rating: