Kim’s Convenience

 

At Pacific Theatre until October 6, 2018
Tickets from $20 at 604-731-5518 or pacifictheatre.org

Posted September 21, 2018

Pride, they say, goeth before the fall and pride almost destroys the Kim family. An argument between Mr. Kim (known to his family as Appa, Korean for father) and Jung, his then teenaged son, led to a bitter exchange of insults and continuing years of estrangement.

As Ins Choi’s play begins, Appa is fiercely engaged in an argument with his 30-year-old daughter Janet over the future of the family-owned corner store now that he’s ready to retire. Kim’s Convenience, Appa argues, is his “story” and he expects her to take over, to create a Kim “dynasty”. But Janet, a budding photographer, has no desire to carry on the family business. Fur, once again, flies.

If this doesn’t sound like a comedy, it is – and more. A lot of laughter comes from Appa’s fractured English, his unabashedly anti-Japanese attitude, his martial arts skill, his outrageous ploy to marry Janet off and his convenience store smarts – like recognizing which shoppers are going to steal and which are not. Recognizing the difference, he tells Janet, is Lesson #1.

Appa, proudly Korean, left a teaching career in his homeland for a better life for himself, his wife and family. It’s payback time, he tells Janet. She, in turn, adds up all the unpaid hours she has worked in the store starting in elementary school: $102,720.00. Appa retaliates by pointing out all those piano lessons, summer art camp, ski passes, orthodontics, a trip to Korea, room and board and on and on. It’s an angry stand-off.

Vancouver audiences had a chance to see Kim’s Convenience back in 2014 on the Arts Club Granville Island Stage. It was a hit there but it’s even better in the intimate Pacific Theatre space. Carolyn Rapanos’ set is so authentic, it’s all you can do not to snatch a bag of chips as you walk past: shelves are loaded with Spam, Wonderbread and chocolate bars and all the stock-in-trade of the corner store. Under Kaitlin Williams’ direction, this isn’t kitchen sink comedy, it’s convenience store comedy right down to the cash register and the little bell over the door that rings to announce the arrival of a customer: ding-a-ling.

The realism of the set extends to all of the performers. Not for a moment do they appear to be acting; they simply are Appa (James Yi), Umma (Maki Yi), Janet (Jessie Liang), Jung (Lee Shorten) and various characters played by Tré Cotten. For about 75 minutes we are in that store – so familiar to many of us who live in an area with a corner store. We know that family and we know their customers including the ones who just come to buy Scratch-and-Win tickets. And we recognize that proprietor. As Appa, Yi is grouchy but, amazingly, forgivable and endearing. Yi gets right under Appa’s skin. Liang’s Janet is confident and outspoken, thoroughly Canadian, and Maki Yi, as Umma, the mother, is quiet and thoughtful. Cotten shines in every role from Janet’s old boyfriend Alex (now a cop), Mr. Lee (a land developer) as well as a couple of shoppers – one of whom has been pegged by Appa as a thief.

Shorten, as Jung, comes across as so broken, so in need of the embrace of a family that the possibility he will remain forever estranged is painful to contemplate.

The surprising thing about Kim’s Convenience, leaning so heavily as it does on this Korean-Canadian family, is that it extends well beyond this particular family. It’s about all families’ tensions and expectations, reconciliations, forgiveness and pride that threatens to tear them all apart. It’s familiar territory told with tremendous  generosity and an open heart. Playwright Choi once said the play is a love letter to his parents; arguably it is a love letter to all parents.