Francis Turnly’s new play is directed by Indhu Rubasingham and is currently playing at the National Theatre’s Dorfman Theatre. Here is what critics have been saying about it…
On a Japanese beach, teenage sisters Hanako and Reiko are caught up in a storm. Reiko survives while Hanako is lost to the sea. Their mother, however, can’t shake the feeling her missing daughter is still alive, and soon family tragedy takes on a global political dimension.
The Guardian: **** “Formally, Turnly’s play breaks no new ground but it draws one’s rapt attention to a scandal that long obsessed the people of Japan.”
The Independent: **** “Questions of identity, of siblinghood and personal responsibility are raised with speed and acuity in Indhu Rubasingham’s remarkably fluent and beautifully acted production.”
The FT: **** “this is an urgent, riveting and resonant piece of theatre.”
The Telegraph: **** “Director Indhu Rubasingham and the company of 10 show a similar care throughout, capturing the quiet agony on one side, the constant fear on the other, never overplaying the darkness or the redeeming glints of humanity.”
The Stage: *** “And if this is in imperfect play, it’s one that fiercely demands, and deserves, our attention to its exploration of shocking and shameful truths.”
Variety: “If it’s a play of two halves, however, each tends to cancel the other out. While Hanako’s life lays bare the harsh realities faced by North Korean citizens, it’s couched alongside a glossy procedural drama as her family pushes for answers in Japan.”
WhatsOnStage: **** “Turnly’s achievement, in bringing this dark story to the stage, is to make it speak of many things. For all its pared-back dialogue, he makes it resonate loudly.”
London Theatre.co.uk: ***** “Francis Turnly’s The Great Wave tells a tale of abduction, espionage and diplomacy between two neighbours in an utterly gripping, heart-breaking new play.”
Exeunt Magazine: “The play itself – if I look at it from a purely critical perspective – which I can’t really do but let’s give it a go – it’s deeply flawed. Plot is favoured over everything else, certain lines of dialogue clank onto the ground dully, the emotions are dialled up to 11 from the get-go and fundamentally I didn’t really – not really – believe the relationships I was seeing up there. But there was something. There was Something.”
The Times: **** “This play is the theatrical equivalent of a sneaker wave — it will bowl you over when you least expect it.”
Evening Standard: *** “Turnly isn’t shy about serving up a history lesson, and sometimes the result is a drip-feed of exposition. Yet in its second half The Great Wave becomes much more than that and takes on a rich emotional charge.”
British Theatre.com: **** “If, particularly in the first half, the production veers slightly towards melodrama in places, Indhu Rubasingham’s direction pulse’s the play perfectly, allowing it to build up the second Great Wave- that of publicity that gained power in Japan through the 1990s until now, and the emotions break beautifully at the conclusion.”
The Upcoming: *** “It’s a shame, then, that The Great Wave spends so much time treading water before this final emotional flood.”
The Reviews Hub: *** “Turnly has drawn attention to a little-known and surprising area of Japanese-North Korean history, and while it doesn’t quite pull both its strands together is a worthy subject for a family-focused drama about the long-term effects of grief.”