Black & White Tea Room- Counsellor written and directed by Hyun-Suk Cha

Review by That Guy in The Foyer, John Doherty

★★★★★

Presented by TOBIZ LTD & GOBAL CULTURAL EXCHANGE COMMITTEE.

Korean Season at The Arts Theatre, Angus Street

March 7, 9, 11, 12, 16, 18 – March 12.

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I have been lucky! I am yet to see a show that disappoints! And “Black & White Tea Room- Counsellor” is no exception! What was disappointing was how under-patronized this word -class performance by overseas guests to the Fringe was. Apparently, they didn’t promote enough- or perhaps the promotional machine of an organization purporting to make a small fortune in profits annually from ticket sales could have utilized some of those funds. But that’s a discussion for later!

“Black & White Tea Room- Counsellor” is billed as “a representative Korean play.” In that case, let us see more, please! Dark, humorous and heart wrenchingly tragic, yet oddly like a thriller has met ‘Waiting for Godot” performed at its best, this is a remarkable piece of theatre. There’s existential angst in abundance presented in a way so compelling the 60 minutes passes in a heartbeat- and that’s performed in Korean with English captions!

We enter the theatre to find The Counsellor (Hyunsuk Cha) drinking what we assume to be tea in the old tea rooms he uses as counselling rooms. There’s a vast record collection, a photo of his deceased wife on a round table, a few chairs, a desk and office chair, telephone table complete with an old dial phone, and a piece of very abstract art, primarily painted in red. The title and director of the play are projected onto the cyclorama. There’s tension in the stillness, punctuated by the occasional sip of tea. I sat for ten minutes entranced by this preshow staging.

The performance proper commences when the lights dim and brief text, enough to contextualize what is occurring here twenty years after the democratization of South Korea, is projected onto the screen. We are given enough information to understand initial efforts to undertake democratic process in 1980 were brutally crushed by the incumbent regime. The Counsellor polishes the photo and places it on his desk and returns to the table. He feeds the fish in a vast implied fish-tank, puts a record on, adds a little touch to the painting, he shaves… Nothing is happening, yet so much is happening! There’s a ‘phone call. It’s the new client, running late The Counsellor has forgone a visit to his late wife’s grave on the anniversary of her passing because he has discerned the client’s desperation from the online appointment details and survey. The Counsellor disconsolately pulls out a pair of shoes, starts to polish them, gives up. The The Client (Taesik Shim) arrives, frantic, dishevelled, his hoody, jeans and backpack suggesting a hard life. The Counsellor is open to helping this desperate man to find trust, to help heal his damaged heart. Small talk about the weather, the fish-tank, the records belies building tension so thick it’s palpable. We find the new client is completely deaf. We find he is so because the Counsellor, when a senior policeman under the old regime, interrogated him as a student dissident he beat him so badly as to render him deaf. The client has come, not to murder the Counsellor, but to provoke him to murder him! And things simply build and build from there! Make no mistake, the Counsellor is not presented as some villain masquerading as a counsellor to conceal his deeds. He knows what he did was wrong, and is as damaged as the client, his way of reconciling to give back as a counsellor. This is not to excuse wrong doing but to remind us that trauma always occurs within a socio- political construct, in this case one that is honour and duty bound. A policeman exceeded his remit, was jailed and emerged a better person, but remains damaged. His client suffered terribly. He, too, is damaged. Both were damaged by the excesses of a regime.

“Black & White Tea Room- Counsellor” first performed in 2014 and set in the early 2000s, is utterly relevant now. And it’s compelling!

Please, go, see it! The Arts Theatre should be filled to capacity for this!

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