Theatre Review: ‘Kim’s Convenience’ at Everyman Theatre

 

“Kim’s Convenience”, a play by Ins Choi, won the new play contest at the Toronto Fringe Festival in 2011. Choi directed the initial production and played the protagonist’s son. Soulpepper Theatre remounted the production in 2012. The play won two Toronto Theatre Critics Awards and toured Canada from 2013-2016. In 2017, the first American production was staged off-Broadway at Pershing Square Signature Theater. In 2015, CBC Television developed a series based on the play which ran for five seasons on Netflix and was the first Canadian television show to feature an Asian cast of lead actors and celebrated as an achievement in diversity for television. Olney Theatre Center also produced the show last year.

Everyman Theatre is partnering with Indiana Repertory Theatre and Portland Center Stage in a “tri-production” of “Kim’s Convenience” in which each theatre has contributed resources to the vision, presentation, and physical design. The production is part of each theatre’s season, starting with Everyman’s first show of their brand new season. Everyman’s managing director, Marissa Rose, introduced Everyman’s new artistic director, Brandon Weinbrenner, at the pre-show subscriber reception. Weinbrenner also welcomed the opening night audience to the theatre’s 36th season and indicated this play has “something that everyone can relate to.”

 

Director cara hinh has given the actors many interesting and hilarious “bits” of physical action, some reminiscent of vaudeville slapstick. These details greatly enhance the characters and provide many laughs. The comedy also defines and lightens the serious themes, which are presented in a satirical manner to heighten audience awareness. Each character focuses on a problem and indicates a possible solution.

 

The setting is a convenience store in Toronto’s Regent Park, a low to middle class neighborhood made up mainly of recent immigrants. The action takes place during a single day in 2012. Resident Company Member Tony K. Nam well defines the father, Appa, the head of an immigrant family who has adjusted to a new country and language, though he remains a proud Korean. He has established a footing in his new surroundings and a community identity which he struggles to preserve. Appa and his wife, Umma (portrayed by Resident Company Member Tuyết Thị Phạm who also played the same character in Olney’s production) speak their native language when alone together (translated with supertitles on each side of the stage) but revert to English with their children and customers. Phạm is sympathetic, understanding, and persuasive, trying to reunite father and son.

 

Jenny S. Lee artfully portrays the daughter Janet. Thirty years old and still not married (much to the chagrin of her father), she is caught between family obligations and her own desires to pursue a career as a photographer. She captures the conflicting emotions of a daughter who begrudgingly helps out at the store but insists on following her own path. When she argues that grown children are not slaves to be ordered about by their parents and, at least, they should be paid a decent salary for the work they do, Appa points out another hard truth.

 

Jao Woo portrays the son, Jung, who is trying to make a life with his partner and their baby while in a job he despises. He presents an emotional and frustrating character who is also a victim of an incident of parental abuse that led to the estrangement from his father. Austin Michael Young plays all the minor characters who add comic relief and interest to the story (Alex, Mike, Rich, Mr. Lee). Thanks to his acting skills and the costume designs by David Burdick, each character is distinctive.

 

Scenic designer Yoon Bae has created an amazingly detailed set with everything you would expect to see in a convenience store: refrigerators with see-through doors, shelves of stocked goods in cans, bottles, boxes, packages and a check-out counter with discount goods and cash register. The position of the counters suggests aisles for added depth and advertising posters are in abundance on the walls.

 

Lighting designer Kat C. Zhou keeps everything bright with fluorescent lighting on the store ceiling, a neon “open/closed” sign on the store door, a street light stage left, a phone booth stage right, and backlighting for the store windows. Sound designer Phillip Gerard Johnson aptly regulates the store “muzak.” Fight choreographer Lewis Shaw has Appa and other characters exhibit some interesting, karate-type defensive moves, with hysterical results. Dialect coach Joy Laceta Coronel has effectively taught the Asian actors to speak convincingly with heavy but easily understandable accents.

 

The real pleasure of this play is the myriad of serious themes presented and illustrated in a comedic setting but with some very touching and dramatic moments: immigrant status and identity crisis, intergenerational and cultural divide, estrangement and family trauma, and legacy and mortality. The four minor characters, traditionally played by a single Black actor, focus on the world changing outside the walls of the store: the threat of urban development and gentrification racial profiling and systemic marginalization, upward social mobility and elitism, multicultural assimilation and modern community connection.

 

“Kim’s Convenience” leaves you laughing, crying, and talking, but, most of all, it leaves you thinking. It is another of Everyman Theatre’s “stories well-told.”