You For Me For You, Theatre Upstairs, Royal Court, London, review: Brilliantly imaginative journey is not to be missed

A marvel of a production is alive to the full range of moods from humour to inhumanity almost beyond belief

Wendy Kweh (Minhee) and Andrew Leung (Youngsup) in You For Me For You (Tristram Kenton)

“Magical realism”, Mia Chung's description of its genre, doesn't begin to do justice to the distinctiveness and distinction of her play. Eschewing documentary reportage, the Korean-American dramatist take us on a brilliantly imaginative journey into the terrible predicament of two famine-starved sisters weighing up the risks and benefits of paying to be people-trafficked out of the mind-boggling totalitarian misery of their native North Korea.

Wendy Kweh and Katie Leung and inhabit their roles to perfection. The latter plays Minhee, the physically ailing wife of a Party Official. She has had to make a hideous political gamble and send her young son, charged with smuggling in South Korean DVDs, away to the dreaded school of re-education. Leung plays Junhee, her protective, ideologically freer sibling. When Minhee falls down a deep, dry well near the border, the pair are split up by (temporarily) separate fates.

Katie Leung and Wendy Kweh inhabit their roles to perfection (Tristram Kenton)

Played within Jon Bausor's vividly versatile mirrored-hexagon of a set, Richard Twyman's tone-leaping marvel of a production is alive to the full range of moods from delightful humour to inhumanity that is almost beyond belief. Daisy Haggard is hilarious, spouting the slowly unscrambling American-English heard by Junhee in her 2 year sojourn to earn money in the US, where the overload of choices sends folk to psychiatrists. Miinhee goes on a quest in her mind that is unforgettably disquieting. Not to be missed.

To 9 Jan; 020 7565 5000