The ActorTects, a company platforming migrant and South Korean woman’s voices, presents Surviving Strangers at The Space. The performances will run from: Thursday 17th November – Sunday 20th November and there will be a live streamed show on 19th November.The play deals with a range of themes: Identity, attachment, intimacy, loneliness, memory and married life.
A Western metropolis. Sometime in a near future. A pandemic erupts and a couple are stuck in lockdown together. At first, it’s all love, fun and games, but very soon the situation becomes unbearable. While the virus is spreading outside, something is happening inside…
Adam Hemming, the director tells us, Surviving Strangers is a contemporary dark dystopian comedy set in London, telling the story of a young couple (A & E – an English man and a South Korean woman) forced, due to a sudden unknown virus, to quarantine in a studio flat after a one-night stand. The play charts the course of a love affair confined to four walls, the daily struggles that constitute both the joy and hell, its misunderstandings and micro aggressions.
The play raises questions about stereotypes, cultural difficulties and how East Asian women are viewed, through a white man’s gaze bound in K-pop clichés, Surviving Strangers uses the pandemic as a lens through which we examine an intercultural relationship and colonial attitudes.
Surviving Strangers began as a 40-minute scratch piece at the Camden Fringe Festival 2021, originally tilted ‘Pandemic of Love’. Overwhelmingly positive feedback from industry professionals encouraged us to develop a 60-minute play at the Space in November with a new creative team.
The writer and the performer is Inyoung Lee and she is a South Korean actress, writer and acting coach based in London. She graduated from The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama: MFA Actor Training & Coaching. Her passion for creating intercultural theatre in the UK led her to create ‘The ActorTects’ in 2020. The company has a vision to increase East Asian visibility in British theatre and challenge pervasive stereotypes about women like herself within the industry. She presented the monologue ‘I’m Not Okay’ written and performed by herself, as part of the podcast series ‘Things I’m Not’.
Inyoung Lee was supported by a co-director,Helen Iskander and Henry Charnock. Helen is an international actress, director, teacher and writer based in London. Having trained with Jacques Lecoq in Paris, she encourages creative art of all kinds and specialises in teaching the Lecoq approach. She was co-artistic director of Fresco in Johannesburg for many years, where she co-wrote and produced 13 original plays, gaining multiple nominations and awards for her work as actor and director. Helen recently devised and performed her new solo show, ‘Welcome!’ at the Riverside Studios, London. She currently works as Movement Lecturer at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and leads he Physical Theatre module for MA Directors at East 15 Acting School. Henry Charnock has had an equally interesting rise. Henry is an actor, writer and producer who began his career in marketing video games, but gave it all up to pursue his passion for performing. He graduated as an actor from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire in 2020. He Founded Theatre Non Grata in 2022, the group received strong reviews for its Offie-Award-nominated debut production, Rob or Rose? at the Camden Fringe in early August. The company’s aim is to stand on a foundation of fun and kindness, helping to reshape the industry into the welcoming, ego-free space it should be. Critical to the production is Ciaran Lonsdale, a London-based actor who trained by The Oxford School of Drama. Previous theatre credits include Unicorn Theatre and The White Bear.
The play will run for 60 minutes without an interval and it deals with adult themes. Tickets are £12/£15.
- . Thursday 17th November 2022 (19:30)
- Friday 18th November 2022 (19:30)
- Saturday 19th November 2022 (14:30 / 19:30), Livestream (14:30)
- Sunday 20th November 2022 (14:30)
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