After their parent's death, siblings Han and Miso are forced into destitution and life upon the streets of Korea. However, Miso is rescued from poverty at the age of ten by an English family, and leaving her younger brother in Korea to fend for himself, she escapes to England and a life of prosperity.
Set in modern day Korea, This Isn't Romance opens with the first meeting between the estranged siblings after their separation as children. Miso, driven by guilt over the abandonment, returns to Korea to seek out Han and make amends for the past but in doing so rekindles the dangerous passions within their relationship. What ensues is a provocative and controversial drama incorporating themes of violence, tempestuous incest and self-brutality.
However, despite the traumas which haunt the drama and siblings lives, the play closes upon a sense of resolution and hope, presenting the reconciled pair looking forward to their new future together. This Isn’t Romance is Chappell’s first professional production, an extraordinary debut which won her the Soho Theatre's Verity Bargate Award in 2007. It opened at the Soho Theatre in February 2009.
