Review: ‘Kim’s Convenience’ charms at Ahmanson Theatre
- Anita W. Harris
- 6 hours ago
- 4 min read
Updated: 25 minutes ago
When Ins Choi and his fellow Asian Canadian actors in Toronto found limited performance opportunities, they decided to write plays in which to cast themselves, Choi said in an interview. It took seven years for him to write “Kim’s Convenience,” only to see it rejected by a number of theatre companies.
Choi finally staged the play himself at the 2011 Toronto Fringe Festival, and the rest is AAPI legend. The show was picked up by Soulpepper Theatre Company to tour Canada, the U.K. and now the U.S. The play also became the basis for a Netflix series of the same name from 2016 to 2021, for which Choi served as writer and executive producer.
Choi’s journey is especially worth celebrating given that the play delivers a quintessential Asian immigrant story with sharp humor and subtle warmth, charming though perhaps a tad dated since its debut.
While the Kim family of the play is Korean, their story would be familiar to practically anyone of Asian descent, including Center Theatre Group artistic director Snehal Desai, who noted on opening night that his Indian parents in the audience had also run a convenience store, and his first job was working its cash register.
But the play isn’t just about running a store, it’s also about the potentially fraught divide between Asian immigrant parents and their first-generation children who grow up with different values. And it’s about the parents’ own sense of belonging in their adopted country, especially given language barriers, and sense of purpose and legacy far from their original home.
That’s a lot to fit into the compact 90 minutes of “Kim’s Convenience,” but Choi’s crisp writing manages to cover those bases in satisfying, if slightly predictable, ultimately cute ways.
We get a lot about the Kim family through dialogue — both spoken and unspoken — especially between gray-haired Appa (Choi) and grown daughter Janet (Kelly Seo). Appa putters around opening up the store (made hyper-realistic through Joanna Yu’s detailed set design) before Janet enters and almost immediately argues with her about calling police over a car parked in the no-parking zone in the back.
It’s funny, not least because of Appa’s thick Korean accent and overreaction, but also reveals the relationship dynamic between the two, which is the heart of the show. Father and daughter are both forthright, pushing and exasperating each other like siblings, but also tolerant and respectful of one another in unspoken ways.
Appa wants Janet to take over the store though she wants to be a photographer, for which she went to school, paid for by Appa, as he reminds her — along with her camera equipment and 30 years of room and board — in a tense scene after she angrily adds up how much he owes her for unpaid work.
When policeman Alex (Brandon McKnight) enters and turns out to be an old friend of Janet’s estranged brother Jung (Ryan Jinn), and also her girlhood crush, Appa takes on the hilarious role of pushy matchmaker.
Meanwhile, Umma (Esther Chung) seeks solace in church (with stained-glass windows evoked by Nicole Eun-Ju Bell’s video projection) over Jung’s 15-year estrangement caused by an argument with his father over how he treats Umma, making starkly apparent the harsher side of Appa’s patriarchal values.
But Jung secretly visits Umma at her church sometimes, revealing that he has become a father himself, though dissatisfied working in a car rental place compared to the successes of his boyhood friends. This sets the stage for a potential reconciliation with Appa that feels a bit too easy.
The acting is stellar all around, especially Choi and Seo, and also McKnight as policeman Alex. The chameleon-like McKnight also plays three other Black characters, including real-estate developer Mr. Lee — who makes Appa a large offer to purchase the store, causing the older man to consider his legacy — and also a young Caribbean man who wants to buy Vaseline.
This young man becomes the subject of Appa's lesson to Janet about who is more likely to steal from the store and who is not. Appa’s stereotypical list of those who “stear” is funny, but also cringeworthy, especially when he proves to be correct about the young man, which is hard to stomach in the way it reinforces those stereotypes. Perhaps having another potential shoplifter in that scene of a different ethnic makeup might soften its racist impact while still making Appa’s point.
But Appa also brings up the 1992 Los Angeles riots in connection with Korean storeowners in South L.A., describing how some Black community members protected those stores from being looted and burned. The story’s punchline is that he’s fine if Janet dates Alex.
Dynamically directed by Weyni Mengesha, “Kim’s Convenience” is enjoyably entertaining, especially if you are a fan of the Netflix series, though It may be more suited to a smaller stage given the empty overhead space and also the slightly stiff scene between Umma and Jung as they face the audience rather than each other, suggesting mutual embarrassment that might come off better in a more intimate setting.
But the play is worth seeing while it’s here because, between all the humorous quips, it deals tenderly with friction between Asian immigrant parents and their children (depicted relatively rarely on L.A. stages, though recent examples include Lauren Yee’s “Cambodian Rock Band” and Wendy Graf’s “Masala Dabba”), illuminating a common experience while making the audience laugh out loud.
“Kim’s Convenience” continues through April 19 at Center Theatre Group’s Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles, with performances Tuesdays through Thursdays at 7:30 p.m., Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m., and Sundays at 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. For tickets and information, call the box office at 213-628-2772 or visit CenterTheatreGroup.org. Run time is 90 minutes with no intermission.