The Apology dramatises the little-known yet wide-scale rape of Korean women and girls during the second world war. We are told that “history is made up of lone voices” and it comes filtered through a single woman’s testimony here. Sun-Hee (Sarah Lam), remembers how at the age of 16, living under Japanese occupation, she was persuaded to join the apparently “patriotic” female volunteer corps.
She was in fact being forced into military sex slavery for Japanese troops, who gave their victims the label of “comfort women”. In a play based on true accounts by survivors, Sun-Hee first comes forward to speak to Priyanka (Sharan Phull), an envoy compiling a report for a UN inquiry. Her interviews become the framing device of Kyo Choi’s shocking and intelligent if rather loose script.
