Award-winning translator and playwright Hansol Jung’s Wolf Play, first performed in 2019, explores the murky real-life world of unregulated “second chance” adoption, the consequences of white saviourism, and the tangled nature of family. Korean six-year-old Jeenu, the titular Wolf, is a traumatised adoptee. He is traded, effectively under the table, between adoptive father Peter (Andrew Todd), a frazzled Arizona man struggling with a newborn biological child and an indecisive wife, and Robin (Emma Katene), a San Francisco woman desperate for a kid of her own. Some chat on a forum, a few quick signatures, an envelope of cash, and the deal is done. But at the handover Peter mistakes Robin’s boorish gym-owning brother Ryan (Nic Kyle) for her husband, and is appalled when her actual partner – wife Ash (Ray Shipley), an aspiring boxer – shows up. Queer parents weren’t exactly on Peter’s wish-list, although as the “guy who sold his kid on the internet”, as Ash puts it, Peter doesn’t exactly have the moral high ground. [More]

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I confess to not knowing much about the play I’m seeing tonight, not helped by The Court Theatre’s obscure show blurb: “an American father, Peter, ‘un-adopts’ a boy over the internet, fulfilling Robin’s dream of becoming a mum.”  Huh?

Thank you, Google, for explaining the actual plot. There are online forums in which people who have adopted foreign children can relinquish them, offering them for adoption to others. It is to one such forum that Peter turns to give up (or rather, sell) Peter Junior, aka Wolf, when domestic life gets complicated and difficult. Robin, who is desperate for a child, joins this forum and there finds Wolf. Her motherhood dream can be fulfilled, and for a reasonable price.

Delivery is completed, the paperwork assigned, and the deal is done. Four stars; would trade again. Yes, this is a world where consumerism might seem to have gone crazy, but this is our world – the show programme tells us that forums like this exist. The play is “inspired by a true story”.

Morality is, of course, a grey scale, and Wolf Play – written by Hansol Jung and directed by Kathleen Burns – reflects that. All four of the adult characters have redeeming aspects, some being more selfless or less bigoted, but the two main adult characters of Robin and Peter are still people who are willing to trade a child on the internet, and to do so with disregard for those they already claim to love.

In the midst of all this confusion is a six-year-old, abandoned/rehomed twice – the first time as a child from Korea and now, for the second time, when he becomes inconvenient. His ‘father’, Peter (an excellently emotionally conflicted Andrew Todd) proclaims to love him, and maybe we can believe him, but he is simply inadequate as parent and partner because he just can’t/won’t stand up for what he really wants. Wolf is not the only one who suffers because of his inadequacy.

Wolf, embodied as a faceless mannequin doll, is brought to passionate life brilliantly by Reylene Rose Hilaga. S/he is at turns humorous, raging, conspiratory, but always engaging, drawing you into Wolf’s story and confidence with intensity. Hilaga perfectly captures the energy, enthusiasm, earnestness and raw emotion of a six-year-old trying to protect themselves, a safe unit of one.

Wolf has lost his birth pack, and his new pack has rejected him – but wolves can survive almost anything, as he reminds us (and himself) throughout the play. Wolf 100% rejects attempts to be pulled into this new pack, yet he desperately needs to belong. Grudgingly, gradually, he begins to connect with another independent wolf – Robin’s wife, Ash (Ray Shipley, in turns inflexible and stand-offish, and then capturing the beauty of the law of attraction at work). Ash has fought hard, and literally still is, for their own place ; they choose their battles carefully, making little attempt to woo Wolf, simply accepting Wolf for who and what he is.

Emma Katene imbues desperate mother Robin with a somewhat manic energy, and Nic Kyle is the apparently relaxed yet incredibly intense brother, Ryan, whose love for family is counterbalanced and undermined by conservative conditioning.

The main action is contained within a small, simple and cleverly utilised set (designed by Hannah McDougall). Action pieces happen within the domestic sets to the sides, while thoughts and monologues take place centre stage, allowing engagement with the audience that is literally up-close and personal in the Court Theatre’s Wakefield Family Front Room.

The multiple independent scenes that happen concurrently in the kitchen are smoothly done, providing maximum use of the small set and keeping the plot moving swiftly. Well-pitched lighting (Giles Tanner) and sound accents (Dan Bain) focus our attention and link the action of the central story, with use of a subtle boxing match sound motif – brought to life fully in an actual boxing match. Everyone here is figuratively fighting for their life or, at least, their way of living their life, Wolf most of all.

There are many big issues in this play, and not just in the core scenario. Who decides what constitutes a fit parent? Do kids need a cookie-cutter nuclear family to be well and balanced? What is the family in modern society? Is the pack you find better than the pack you are born into? How can you ever find real security when you rely on other people.

Is it better to be a lone wolf after all?

Amongst all of these questions, there is also a lot of laughter; I have not expected to laugh out loud quite so much as I do. There are also quiet and, frankly, uncomfortable moments of contemplation, so I’ll admit to a few tears too.

As Wolf reminds us, sometimes there are ‘Oh, no’ moments in a story, but we hold on, hoping for the ‘Phew’ moment that might come after. I won’t tell you if you will walk away with an ‘Oh no’ or a ‘Phew’ from Wolf Play; you’ll have to see it for yourself, and I recommend that you do.

Wolf Play has surprised and deeply impressed me; I’m sure it will do the same for you.

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