The story's main thrust follows Appa's frayed relationship with his children: The eldest, Jung (Brian Law, bravely taking on not only the role the playwright wrote for himself, but the one that'll have the audience physically comparing him to Simu Liu*) was a teenage tearaway who, after one too many confrontations with his father, robbed the takings and ran away 15 years earlier.
Janet (Jennifer Kim) just about scrapes a living as a wedding photographer, but still lives with her parents above the shop. She also has a combative relationship with Appa, who on the one hand has high hopes for her which her career choice hasn’t lived up to, on the other believes that as she’s 30 and unmarried she should consider taking over the shop from him. Janet does in fact get a chance at a new relationship in the course of the play, as a policeman answering a nuisance call turns out to be Alex (Miles Mitchell, also playing all the customers,) a teenage crush who never noticed her back then but clicks with her now.
This version of Kim’s Convenience is a bit darker than its adaptation, both in terms of character and humour: Appa’s frustrations and anger with his children have a suggestion of a violent edge to them here, and his power to spot shoplifters teeters a bit too closely to racial profiling to comfortably get laughs. While the play is essentially a celebration of immigrant parents and the sacrifices they made for their families, it’s also hard not to take Janet’s side in her frustration at her father never having thanked her for anything she did to help. The running gag about Appa misusing martial arts on family and customers gets a nicely moving payoff in this story.
Umma also feels underwritten; Go is great at the scenes where she communicates everything clearly to the audience despite her conversations with her husband being entirely in Korean without surtitles, but in contrast to her TV counterpart (who I love for subverting sitcom wife tropes to the extent that she does) the character has little to do other than secretly meet up with Jung. Even then, the emotional core of that story thread is in his eventual meeting with his father.
On the other hand, what the show does well it does very well, not just in the light but slightly spiky comedy exchanges, but also in the genuine warm-heartedness which Esther Jun’s production really captures. As it turns out I couldn’t have been in a better combination for reviewing the show if I’d planned it that way, because while I loved the TV show and have watched every episode (it’s one of the shows I’ve got somewhere in the back of my head as potential comfort-rewatching in the future,) I went with my friend Jan who hadn’t even heard of it until seeing the blurb for this show. As a newcomer he seemed to enjoy it as much as I did, and with much the same caveats, and he might be adding the TV version to his viewing list himself.
Kim’s Convenience is a short play, some of whose elements feel a bit rough around the edges and unfinished – the threat of a WalMart opening across the road is the major peril at the start of the story, and has been forgotten by the end – but with a distinctive comic touch and a lot of areas ripe for expansion. And where it differs from most other plays whose promising elements you’d like to see explored more over those that don’t quite work, is that that’s exactly what has already happened. The sitcom is clearly where Choi’s eccentric, combative but loving family most comfortably found their voices, but this original appearance from them has a lot to offer as well.
Kim's Convenience by Ins Choi is booking until the 10th of February at Park Theatre 200.
Running time: 1 hour 25 minutes straight through.
Photo credit: Mark Douet.
*turns out Jung's shirt doesn't keep falling off in the original play, guess that was something that got added after Liu's casting for some reason
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