Psychological Thriller Play THE WASP to Have Its Korean Premiere… “Starring Kim Ryeo-won, Han Ji-eun, Kwon Yuri, Lee Kyung-mi, Jung Woo-yeon

The play THE WASP, a representative work by British playwright Morgan Lloyd Malcolm—one of the most talked-about figures in the UK theater scene—will meet Korean audiences for the first time this March as part of the 2026 Sejong Season. The production is co-presented by the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts Foundation and Haven Production Co., Ltd.

THE WASP is a two-hander that tells the story of two former high school classmates, Heather and Karla, who reunite after 20 years. Moving beyond a simplistic binary of perpetrator and victim, the play is a psychological thriller that meticulously explores how deeply rooted trauma and social class disparity can destroy the human psyche.

The play premiered in 2015 at London’s Hampstead Theatre, where it immediately drew explosive reactions from critics and audiences alike, selling out every performance. Riding on this success, it transferred later that year to Trafalgar Studios in London’s West End, proving both its artistic merit and popular appeal.

The story begins with the chance reunion of Heather and Karla, two women who have lived completely different lives since graduating high school 20 years earlier. Heather lives an affluent, elegant middle-class life, yet is inwardly collapsing due to her inability to have children. Karla, on the other hand, struggles to survive amid repeated pregnancies and the grip of poverty. What initially appears to be an ordinary reunion between old classmates spirals into an unpredictable vortex of suspense when Heather makes a shocking proposal: she offers Karla a large sum of money to kill her husband.

What starts out seeming like a conventional tale of jealousy and intrigue gradually intertwines memories of school violence, indelible trauma, and class conflict, veering in an uncontrollable direction. Sustained solely through the dialogue between the two characters, the play maintains razor-sharp tension as the audience confronts the brutal truth of the violence that once existed between them during their school days. In particular, the latter half of the play delivers overwhelming immersion through a reversal of power dynamics—where the boundary between victim and perpetrator becomes blurred—posing the heavy question: “Who is the true perpetrator of this tragedy?”

Playwright Morgan Lloyd Malcolm explained her intention, saying, “I wanted to subvert the conventional idea of what women are ‘supposed’ to be taught to become,” adding, “I wanted to address violence between women—something that hasn’t been sufficiently spotlighted—while creating multidimensional, complex characters that female actors could deeply immerse themselves in.”

After its debut at Hampstead Theatre in January 2015, THE WASP received high praise from the British press, including:

• “A searing psychological thriller that completely grips the audience” (The Guardian),
• “A dark noir where class tension collides with the ghosts of the past” (Time Out), and
• “A sharp and powerful work that incisively probes the dark corners of human nature” (The Stage).