Orange Polar Bear, presented by Hanyong Theatre, Birmingham Repertory Theatre and the National Theatre Company of Korea, in association with Birmingham City University, and written by Ko Sun Duck and Evan Placey, recorded in Dress Rehearsal on 31st October 2018 at Birmingham Repertory Theatre. Video by Jay Langdell. No copying, transmission or public presentation of this recording is permitted. Copyright is held by Evan Placey and Ko Sun Duck, and performance rights are shared by NTCK, Birmingham Repertory Theatre and Hanyong Theatre Projects Ltd.
Copy of Surtitles - manual scroll
Please Note: This document contains the English surtitles only. In the original performance, as you can see from the video, surtitles were projected in English and Korean. This file has been attached for clarification for English-speaking readers, since the surtitles are not always visible in the recording. You can scroll through the titles as the video plays. There is also a script available which you could use if you wish to investigate sections of the play in detail. Please note the prologue and some other sections of the play did not have surtitles, so these titles begin when the characters first address the audience.
He lives across the ocean, in a flat.
Perhaps no different from mine.
Maybe not a high-rise building.
His mum has left a note by his cereal bowl.
His mum does whatever it takes to make him look British.
Cocopops is just the beginning.
Like my dad who wants to make me a pretty and smart student.
Do you think adults understand our complicated minds?
The girl raises a black flag every morning.
Praying in silence for the children covered in blood from the terror.
Once some jerk at school made a comment about her hair.
Since then, she never leaves the house without doing her hair.
She must survive in this society
that always has something to say about your appearance.
Mum, didn’t you iron my blue shirt?
Oh, I forgot. I will do it now.
What’s wrong with you these days, why do you keep forgetting?
I’ll be late tonight.
You are leaving already Breakfast is ready now…
Her dad, a hotshot gaming exec, is always busy,
Gran is always busy looking after him. And the Girl,
Oh, no a zit!
Remembering the children covered in blood, the Girl pulls herself together and mourns for them.
Sweetie! The food is getting cold!
Her nagging: food, food, food! interrupts my mourning.
If only you would eat breakfast instead of looking in that damn mirror.
After having a bowl of Cocopops,
The Boy is off to school.
And the boy walks to…no.
He catches the bus.
A gap.
The Girl is like that gap here.
Because here nobody knows the Girl exists. Except Taehee.
Taehee got the audition!
Taehee, our goddess
When they first started middle school
and were in the same class, Taehee was not so special.
A lot smaller than the Girl, didn’t know how to talk, and looked like a baby compared to her.
That’s an awesome hoodie. And it’s also one of my favourite brands.
I live in the same block as you. Want to hit the cafeteria?
At that time there was a 0.000000001% chance that she’d become a goddess.
But over the winter holidays during our first year, Taehee’s body developed, developed, developed and developed.
And by the senior year,
Hey, what are you wearing? Where is your waistline ?
Taehee has become a grown woman.
The boys were the first to notice.
Cafeteria,
Toilet,
Afterschool club,
Café,
Shopping mall,
Even to her date. Because the Girl cannot say no.
Because the Girl sees
which way the wind is blowing, for fear of being left alone.
You need an extreme makeover. Here, here, and here.
A wave as high as mountains hits the Girl.
Her laughter sinks into the sea.
The boy is playing his video game, which he’s not very good at.
He’s only on level 3, which is…
Level 4,
It’s crap.
But just like the Girl pretends she’s part of the cool crowd in her class, he pretends he’s a hotshot.
Dinner is turning around in the microwave…
The Boy in the empty house, and the Girl under Taehee’s grip,
turning round and round in her place.
In her lower belly, the cold sensation swirls again.
The violent waves carved on the forehead of her gran.
Her rough hand putting the laundry in the net with lightning speed through the Technicolor T.V. waves.
The white seaweed wavering under those knuckles.
Gran! Are you back? Have you eaten?
I told you not to touch my things.
Touch your things
Why would I do that when I know you’ll make a scene?
Didn’t I tell you never to come into my room?
You ought to dry underwear in fresh air.
They’ll stink if you dry them inside.
I know what I am doing.
If there is no ice, why can’t it just live on land?
It’s a POLAR bear, gran.
His mum is singing lullabies for him.
I am thinking what my mum would sing for me.And when the boy was older,
they would watch Eurovision together and make bets.
And then one day it was just him alone.
Singing for no one to hear in an empty house.
No idea how to use these.
No clue of what to expect of them.
All the makeup that Taehee had pressured the Girl to buy.
That’s true, you need an extreme makeover. Here, here, and here.
Teen makeup.
They say all their products are unique, but
they’re all exactly the same. Same makeup, same techniques.
Taehee imitates the girl groups, classmates imitate Taehee.
She imagines herself confidently standing up to Taehee.
I just don’t want to become a woman living by someone else’s rules!The yearning for her mum,
frozen as hard as an iceberg, is melting rapidly.
There in the mirror is a polar bear.
The polar bear that got left out
because it didn’t have the world’s ideal body shape,
because its face wasn’t pale and slim.
I don’t remember her face at all
but whenever I smell make up I see myself playing at mum’s feet.
Feet I could never hold on to.
If I had held on,
would it have made it all better?
Mum, you know how I feel right?
He should really stop staring at her.
But he can’t seem to help himself.
Fast-forward to lunch.
This is awkward.
He wants to sit with her.
He won’t.
Is she inviting him to sit with her?
The girl is forward like Taehee. He won’t sit by her.Korean and British boys are all the same.
The boy moved.
Now she needs to move too.
Dad comes home from his night duty at around 10 pm.
Dad! Coming home now
Hey, can I ask…
You are home late from after school club
Yeah, an after -after-school class.
For an exam next week.
How’s your studying going? Is it okay?
You’ve grown.
What is it?
Your height.
Speak to me.
I don’t remember…
Dad.
What?
Louder!
Mum!
What?
Where is mum?
I’m not saying I want to meet her but I’m just curious…
Since I went to primary school, she’s never been in touch so…
So?
She’s still my mum.
And with the whole custody…
What custody?
Huh?
What is it that you need?
Uhh, I just want to
Hey!
Didn’t you push the button?
The girl thinks.
I would never want to live with a man like him.
My dad who wanted to erase everything and anything related to mum.
The day that Gran got on a plane for the first time
to come to her son’s house in Seoul, all the way across the sea.
The day she was searching for the little girl all over the place, instead of finding sea snails in the Jeju Island water.
The day the Girl was afraid that if she accepted her gran, her mum would never come back.
So she hid underneath her mum’s dressing table.
It’s because she is still young.
After a while the Girl could hear her gran sadly singing…
And her dad’s cold and rough hand pulled the Girl out by force.
Why are you here?
Your gran is your mum from now on. Understood?
The Girl screamed for her mum, and dad screamed for gran.
The ice water runs along the flat water pipe.
Round and round and round.
He takes the bus.
No one cares, no one notices.
They play pretend guns, chasing each other when they’re nine.
At eleven they trade those for video game controls and shoot.
They start secondary school and it’s…
And the Girl thinks about Taehee.
Somehow as far away from her younger self as Arthur is from Ayotunde.Taehee is practising dancing in her talent agency studio.
These days Taehee’s mum manages her schedule.
The Girl imagines herself chatting with her mum over a cup of morning coffee.
The moment she opens the firmly closed door,
Have you eaten?
Oh, my daughter.
You are late.
Have a bite of this big pancake. Delicious, delicious.
Don’t take life too seriously.
All you need is good food and a family to share it with.
Oh yeah, oh yeah. Rain makes me feel alive.
It’s just like being in the ocean.
It really isn’t fair that Dad,
who separated the girl and her gran from the Jeju ocean,
is reminiscing about the sea like that.
The Girl hates the way her dad pretends to have a perfect, happy family when he gets drunk.
When she was young, her gran looked forward to the summer holiday more than she did.
Jiyoung!
Every holiday, the Girl went with her gran to her Jeju Island home.
What do you want today?
There is sea snail, sea cucumber, octopus.
Caught it all myself!
The Girl played diving in the yard filled with the sound of waves
And her gran stayed out in the sea and grew darker like basalt.
Bu Jiyoung!
When she started Year 4,
The Dad registered her for after-school programmes everywhere and took away her holidays with Gran.
She hated people talking about her dad graduating from the best university,
and how she wasn’t as clever as him.
She attended after-school programmes diligently but her grades stayed the same.
And her gran’s face grew as pale as the concrete walls of the apartment.The smell of food exploding,
the sound of exaggerated laughs clouding the living room.
Hey you. Hey hey.
Are you eating all of it? Stop there. You’ll get fat.
What? How is she fat?
Mum you know nothing.
The kids these days are so conscious of their bodies…
My my, see my daughter’s belly, huge.
My, my, bigger than mine.
Nonsense. Sweetie, have more while they are hot.
I’m fine.
What? My sweetie, are you annoyed?
Mum, why do you give us a hard time with all this delicious food?
How about we start dieting tomorrow and eat as much as we want tonight, huh?
Yeah yeah. Have a bite. Have a bite.
I’d like to see you eat properly.
You shouldn’t forget to eat, just because you’re out and about.
You both look hungry to me all the time.
Mum, more Soju for me.
Sure sure.
Mum, my cellphone on the dining table there too.
Sure sure.
Can’t you do it yourself? Hey, you. Watch your mouth!
You don’t know how hard it is to support your family.
Ow, sweetheart, you are more terrifying than my boss.
You shouldn’t say that.
How can you say that to me?
Gran spends all day cleaning after you.
She only came here because of you.
Family needs no apologies…
My poor mum… Mum, long live Mum.
Here.
What?
An address
…your mum…
That’s it! In block 909, flat 2018, in that space, my mum lives.
Smile calmly as best as I can.
Maybe when I ring the doorbell,
I’ll realise I’ve already met my mum.
Passed her on the street, sat next to her in the library.
504
507
602
Where is 909?
Excuse me, where are you going?
Instantaneously turned into an ant.
Block # 909!The glass door protected by a password.
Floor 20.
The door that opened,
The door that finally opened after 13 years,
Closes.
Idiot, moron, loser.
Just because I find mum's flat doesn't mean things will change.
I have been standing outside her apartment for thirteen years.
What did I expect to get out of this?
Grans with babies on their backs
waiting for the yellow shuttle bus from the day care centre.
At night the babies cry like screaming seagulls, looking for their mums.
To get out of this strange world,
To get out of this unbearable feeling
She swims back home with all her might.
As always her gran is home, where the T.V. is on all day long.
You’re back
Gran.
What’s wrong?
Nothing. My stomach hurts. Rub it with your hand please.
Sure sure.
My birth Goddess,
please cure my granddaughter’s stomach ache.
Remembers that she often had a stomach ache when she was young.
It got worse whenever she missed her mum.
Then every time her gran rubbed her stomach caringly, she felt miraculously better.
Gran.
What?
Don’t you miss the sea?
I’ve watched the sea enough on T.V.
Shall we, go to Jeju Island? Shall we live there?
Jiyoung. You.
I will learn how to cook. I won’t bother you.
You can go out and dive with your friends all day.
Have you met her?
What?
Your mum?
I threw it away.
What?
Yes, I binned her address.
What’s the use in meeting her now?
I don’t remember anything.
I understand I understand. It’s nobody’s fault.
It’s just not meant to be.
The Girl has a real stomach ache this time.
Her stomach seems like it is twisting.
You are hungry, not sick.
Gran will get you some food right away.
I will get it.
No. You don’t even know where the plates are.
My sweetie, what would make you stronger?
Her mum has already deleted her, lives in a different kind of world.
Her gran, is always in the same world as the Girl, even though the Girl continues to push her away.
Always the same, always in the same place.
Eat up. Eating rice is the way to good health.
The Girl tries very hard to erase the longing for her mum from her mind.
The Girl can feel her steps have more strength in them.
Perhaps it’s because she’s been eating gran’s food.
The Girl feels like the thorns in her heart have softened.
It’s still uncomfortable with dad,
and Taehee still makes her feel stupid,
but it is not too bad, she thinks.
The head of the talent agency - that Taehee signed with –
has been sexually abusing young women.
Then, what about…
Taehee
Classmates whisper.
They’re saying it might have happened to Taehee.
That she’s to blame.
That she used it to advance her own career.
The Girl tries hard not to meet anyone’s eyes.
But Taehee’s desperate eyes catch the Girl.
In her head Taehee’s footsteps tap tap tap tap.
Glaring eyes in all directions.
Jiyoung…
Toilet.
The Girl runs far away from Taehee’s piercing eyes.
The Girl, who had always been afraid of being betrayed by Taehee, now runs away as the betrayer.
The Girl wakes from a nightmare.
Animals’ glaring eyes.
Who was bitten, the Girl or Taehee
Taehee’s glaring eyes turn away.
Gah, my fringe! What should I do with this fringe
The Girl decides to cover it with a hoodie.
Hurry up, I’m late.
I gave her mum’s address to her.
Mum!
Where is the hoodie?
Why did you do that?
Where is my hoodie?
What hoodie?
A hoodie! Hooded, blue, where did you put it?
What are you doing now?
Didn’t I tell you not to touch my stuff without asking!
I will find it later, eat your breakfast now.
I cannot go out without that hoodie! Hurry up and find it!
I said what are you doing?
Why make all this fuss for that stupid hoodie?
You really make me want to…
Get rid of me
A pathetic daughter like me,
be honest neither of you wanted me anyway.Why didn’t you just get rid of me sooner?
…Bitch.
How could you do that to me?
Even You.
Why didn’t you talk with me about it?
Is it all my fault?
Do you think so?
Did you hate me that much?
Angry waves continuously hitting the rocks.
Erases her dad.
Erases her mum.
Erases Taehee.
Erases the Girl.
Erases, erases, erases, and pop.
Yes, so very much. How about you?
I will say to myself it’s not too late.
No matter what, here and now is our best.Me neither. I don’t know how to start.
I can’t think of anything.
Taehee. Taehee, Listen to me.
I avoided you then only because I was afraid.
I had no idea you would be so hurt by it.
Because you were always stronger than me.
The Girl stands in front of Taehee’s flat.
Feels the same choking tension as in front of her mum’s flat.
Have you eaten?
You have to eat to be strong enough to fight.
The Girl, determined not to avoid Taehee’s eyes, looks straight into them instead.
That bastard is a total sleazeball.
The Girl, squeezing out all the swear words she knows, curses the head of the agency.
All the negative eyes that bombarded Taehee.
All the unnecessary pain that bombarded Taehee.
The Girl tries hard to turn back the hands of time before all of the mess.
She knows that her father will yell at her for running away.
But he just looks at her.
And he smiles.
Why are you in there again?
And Dad holds out his hand.
And he cries.
I’m hungry.
And then the Girl, suddenly realizes that perhaps all she ever wanted was this.
Just being here, like this.
The girl…
I wrote a letter to my mum.
I wrote everything I had wanted to ask her, to tell her.
But I didn’t send it. Maybe one day I will.
But now I know.
That no one could give me what I’m looking for.
