'Scenes from a Repatriation' review — this daring drama balances biting satire with extraordinary personal depth

Read our review of Joel Tan's new play Scenes from a Repatriation, now in performances at the Royal Court to 24 May.

Joel Tan’s bold, shape-shifting play follows the journey of a thousand-year-old statue of the Bodhisattva Guanyin, currently housed in the British Museum. Taken from its birthplace in China and brought to be displayed on foreign soil in London, the statue now stands at the centre of protests for its return.

But while Scenes from a Repatriation begins as a surface-level debate about objects, it deepens into something more profound: a meditation on identity, belonging, and what it actually means for an artefact to be uprooted from its rightful home.

An ensemble of six actors morph fluidly between roles, with remarkable shifts in physicality and voice. Fiona Hampton, in particular, impresses with her chameleonic ability to embody different characters with total conviction. Under the direction of experimental directors emma + pj, the production ricochets between styles and settings, constantly probing the complexities of ownership, memory and meaning.

Yet the Bodhisattva Guanyin remains a still, silent presence — an all-seeing eye watching the action unfold. From the position of an object on display, it is gradually reframed as a vessel of knowledge and loss. Some of the play’s most affecting moments come when characters address the statue directly. “How are you feeling?” asks a spoken word artist, grieving the erasure of his own cultural identity. Though the statue remains silent, we can almost hear it speak a thousand words.

In Britain, conversations about repatriation are often framed around national heritage and preservation. But the brilliance of Tan’s script lies in how it hones in on individuals — and the emotional and spiritual weight that objects can carry. A student resents being forced to visit the statue as part of his course. A young Chinese woman working for a wealthy businessman describes the importance of repatriation for people: “There is something sacred about return,” she says simply.

Scenes are introduced with museum-style labels projected on a screen above the lower section of the set. There’s a coldness to them; we simply get a title, language, setting and brief explanation. In a play that travels across continents – from China to Britain, and eventually back again — this is a unifying device that forces home the detached, objectifying gaze of Western exhibitions.

As the title suggests, Scenes from a Repatriation offers only fragments of a vast, divisive global discussion. But Tan has written a play that feels at once sweeping in scope and completely nuanced. Told with biting satire and extraordinary personal depth, it establishes him as one of the most daring playwrights working today —remember his name, he’s just getting started.

Scenes from a Repatriation is at the Royal Court to 24 May. Book Scenes from a Repatriation tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk.

Photo credit: Scenes from a Repatriation (Photos by Alex Brenner)