FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT PROF. GEOFFREY SHEEHAN AT 203-332-5270
SEXUAL SLAVERY IN WORLD WAR II SUBJECT OF PLAY 10/27 AT HCC
BRIDGEPORT –Face, a
powerful one-person play about the “comfort women” forced
into sexual slavery by Japanese soldiers during World War II, will
be staged at Housatonic Community College Tuesday, Oct. 27, at 7 p.m.
The
play, written and to be performed by actress Haerry Kim, tells the
story of a surviving comfort woman, now in her 80s, still haunted by
the atrocities she endured. Drawing on first-person testimonies of
women who endured this slavery, Kim has crafted a memory play containing
the woman’s recollections of various
incidents in her life.
“I read a book of testimony of the surviving comfort women in 2000, and it completely shook me to my core,” Kim recalls. “Reading the story of each survivor and what they went through put a human face on the issue for me. It compelled me to write a solo show.”
Some 200,000 women, many from occupied Korea, were forced into service as comfort women to service Japanese soldiers in “comfort stations.” The comfort women program was instituted as a way to stop the rape of local women by occupying Japanese soldiers.
In the play, Kim plays the role of the main character at various ages. Without benefit of make-up, Kim shifts easily and credibly into each of these roles and becomes the woman, through what’s been described as her “uncannily expressive countenance.”
The play, which is free and open to the public, will be staged in the Performing Arts Center in Lafayette Hall at the College. HCC is located at 900 Lafayette Boulevard in downtown Bridgeport, less than 150 yards off I-95(Exit 27) and Rte 8 (Exit 1), a block from the Arena at Harbor Yard.
Anson C. Smith, Public Relations Coordinator
Housatonic Community College
900 Lafayette Blvd.
Bridgeport, CT 06604
Tel: 203-332-5229, Fax: 203-332-5247
E-mail: asmith@hcc.commnet.edu