You For Me For You, Reviewed

Portland Playhouse's tale of two sisters is the most stunning thing we've seen on stages this season.

If Kafka, Lewis Carroll and Dalí met in the woods, their collective diary might look like Junhee's story in Mia Chung's play about two North Korean sisters separated at the border when they try to escape starvation and censorship.

But Junhee (Khanh Doan) is only half the story in Portland Playhouse's deftly-staged show.

The backdrop—a tiled world map on three sliding panels—splits to reveal an alternate stage. There, Junhee's sister Minhee (Susan Hyon) escapes to New York City and is bluntly introduced to modern culture via customs and Costco sampling ladies (all played with oversized hilarity by Nikki Weaver) in a montage of skit-like scenes. As Junhee tries to find her son, who's been shipped to re-education school for possessing South Korean DVDs, she encounters a series of trippy trials. Paint these tree leaves; make this rice sing; save this man in a bear costume playing the accordion.

Short scenes keep the show engaging, but there's no lack of emotional heft thanks to Doan and Hyon's convincing sisterhood and the thematic rain cloud of Communist oppression.

The play's one fault is its rushed resolution, when Minhee's inevitable return to North Korea comes and goes too quickly for us to buy into—and that's in a play where singing rice bags are fully believable.

See it: You For Me for You is at Portland Playhouse, 602 NE Prescott St., 488-5822. 7:30 pm Wednesday-Saturday and 2 pm Sunday, through Feb. 28. $32-$36.

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