Adoption, belonging, and finding your pack in ‘Wolf Play’ at Wilbury Theatre

“Wolf Play” opens Thursday night at the Wilbury Theatre Group. Written by Hansul Jung, the play is about a 6-year-old boy who was adopted from Korea by a family in Arizona who decide to rehome him after they give birth to a child. The play begins as the child, Wolf, arrives at his new home and meets his new parents, Robin and Ash.

Robin has desperately wanted to be a mother for a while, and she turns to internet message boards. This part of the play is inspired by real-life cases of American parents going to Yahoo and Facebook message boards to privately rehome unwanted children, the majority of which are international adoptees. 

Although the original adoptive family call him “Pete Junior,” the child’s Korean name is Jeenu. He’s played by an adult actor controlling a puppet the size of a 6-year-old. Marcel Mascaró is the director for this production at the Wilbury.

“To me, the reason why there’s a puppet in this play is because that’s how people are treating Jeenu,” Mascaró said. “That’s how people are treating this adopted 6-year-old child. A puppet to me is something that we put an image on, that we put our impressions on, and we make in our own image to control them as much as possible.”

The puppet has no facial features, and is covered in matte black fabric tape. Sara States portrays Wolf and controls the Jeenu puppet.

“Jeenu’s very playful, and his limbs move and head moves to respond to people,” States said. “I think the idea is that it’s not like so polished, this puppet. It’s got a sort of rough-around-the-edges look to it and I think that’s the intention here, is that this is just a plaything in a way and it’s not made to resemble a real 6-year-old human child.”

Despite the rough and blank nature of the puppet, he’s handled with great emotional dexterity by States as the puppet reacts to the adults who are controlling his life. Shunted from family to family, it’s no surprise that a 6-year-old would take on the characteristics of a wolf, howling, growling and swiping with his paws.

“I think it’s a coping mechanism,” States says. “Something a child might do or a person might do to deal with trauma, or when things are above them or can’t be controlled. Or also just taking on the persona of a wolf, an animal that’s able to survive and adapt to anywhere. It’s all about finding a pack. And I mean, from my experience as an adoptee, finding your pack can be really hard, you know. I’m Korean and I have caucasian parents here in the States. And I went to school in a very white school, a very white town. And so I think finding my pack was something that didn’t happen right away. It’s just a theme that I’m thinking about a lot and like, these aren’t bad people and they do make up a wolf pack of sorts. They’re kind of like outsiders, oddballs themselves.”

While Robin has been hoping for a child for years, her partner Ash is more reluctant, and is disturbed by the idea of finding a child from a shady internet message board in what is not exactly a legal adoption. Ash is a bit of a fictional trope: the tough boxer with the tender soul. But Ash is also non-binary, transmasculine and training to fight a cisgender man for their first professional bout. As States sees it, they’re an outsider like Wolf.

“Ash early on in the play sort of sees through the puppet in a moment and makes direct eye contact with Wolf,” States said. “So I think both characters to me are the most alike, in that they have the most to overcome or the most to, you know, find self or something like this. And so I think they see each other in a way.

Mascaró summarized the play: “For everyone else except Wolf, it’s about broken people desperately searching for their pack in a sea and in a dam of miscommunication. And for Wolf, it’s about a child, lost, searching desperately for his own family, in a whole dam of miscommunication.” 

“Wolf Play” runs at The Wilbury Theatre Group March 21 – April 7.

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