{"id":3038,"date":"2017-07-10T21:15:51","date_gmt":"2017-07-10T21:15:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2017\/07\/10\/review-kims-convenience-shares-family-ties-for-better-and-worse\/"},"modified":"2017-07-10T21:15:51","modified_gmt":"2017-07-10T21:15:51","slug":"review-kims-convenience-shares-family-ties-for-better-and-worse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2017\/07\/10\/review-kims-convenience-shares-family-ties-for-better-and-worse\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: \u2018Kim\u2019s Convenience\u2019 Shares Family Ties, for Better and Worse"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jesse Green \/ NYT<\/em><\/p>\n

There are plays you\u2019re supposed to like but don\u2019t, and plays you\u2019re not supposed to like but do. For me, \u201cKim\u2019s Convenience,\u201d which opened on Wednesday at the\u00a0Pershing Square Signature Center, is both.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re supposed to like the play, about a Toronto variety store run by a family of Korean-Canadians, in part because it would just be darn rude not to. It is, after all, a kind of Pan-American offering, part of\u00a0a monthlong New York residency\u00a0by the Soulpepper Theater Company of Toronto.<\/p>\n

That residency is well timed. \u201cCome From Away,\u201d the celebrated Newfoundland musical\u00a0I somehow disliked, has primed the pump here for Canadian theater, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada (a former\u00a0drama teacher!) has basically set himself up as a shiny alternative to the arts-defunding, immigrant-dispelling Trump agenda.<\/p>\n

In a brief post-show greeting, Albert Schultz, Soulpepper\u2019s founding artistic director, slyly acknowledged that northern halo, discerning among the evening\u2019s audience members a bunch of Canadians \u2014 they were waving tiny maple leaf flags \u2014 and \u201cmaybe some who want to be soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

You\u2019re also supposed to like \u201cKim\u2019s Convenience\u201d because it is aggressively designed, by the playwright Ins Choi, to be likable. (It has been\u00a0a success for Soulpepper\u00a0since 2012.) In this case, likable means sentimental, familiar and generically feel-good. Mr. Kim (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee) is Appa \u2014 \u201cfather\u201d in Korean \u2014 a gruff, undemonstrative paterfamilias whose struggles as an immigrant and a provider are nevertheless valorized. In this, he may remind you of dozens of characters, from Tevye to Archie Bunker, whose assumptions and worldview are challenged by changing times and freethinking daughters.<\/p>\n

Here, the daughter is Janet (Rosie Simon), a thoroughly assimilated second-generation type. Her rebellion takes the form of not yet being married at 30, a crime that sends her otherwise loving Umma (\u201cmom\u201d) into paroxysms of hennishness. To Appa, the larger betrayal is Janet\u2019s choice to \u201cwaste\u201d her time as a photographer instead of taking over the business. Now that a budding neighborhood tycoon (Ronnie Rowe Jr., in one of several roles) has offered Appa a large sum to cash out, the future of the store \u2014 and of his own story, which is bound up with it \u2014 is at risk.<\/p>\n

Even if the setup weren\u2019t so rote, Mr. Choi\u2019s script invites d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu with dialogue and behavior that work slight variations on hoary comic templates. Appa forces Janet to call 911 when a car \u2014 a Japanese car, specifically, because he hates the Japanese \u2014 parks in the no-parking zone in front of his store. In a flashback, we learn that in naming the business he and Umma (Jean Yoon) considered options such as \u201c7-Twelve\u201d and \u201cKim Hortons.\u201d Appa\u2019s thick accent is the butt of many jokes, but so, too, is his racism: He has developed an elaborate taxonomy of likely shoplifters based mostly on color, if secondarily on gender and size.<\/p>\n

Such sitcomishness is why, as a theater critic, I shouldn\u2019t like \u201cKim\u2019s Convenience.\u201d Indeed, the play has been turned without much difficulty into\u00a0an actual sitcom, whose\u00a0shiny debut episode\u00a0on CBC Television last year finds Appa adorably tangled in a gay-discount scheme during Toronto\u2019s Pride Week. A second season of 13 episodes is set to begin airing this fall.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jesse Green \/ NYT There are plays you\u2019re supposed to like but don\u2019t, and plays you\u2019re not supposed to like but do. For me, \u201cKim\u2019s Convenience,\u201d which opened on Wednesday at the\u00a0Pershing Square Signature Center, is both. You\u2019re supposed to like the play, about a Toronto variety store run by a family of Korean-Canadians, in … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nReview: \u2018Kim\u2019s Convenience\u2019 Shares Family Ties, for Better and Worse - Thunderbird Entertainment<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2017\/07\/10\/review-kims-convenience-shares-family-ties-for-better-and-worse\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Review: \u2018Kim\u2019s Convenience\u2019 Shares Family Ties, for Better and Worse - Thunderbird Entertainment\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Jesse Green \/ NYT There are plays you\u2019re supposed to like but don\u2019t, and plays you\u2019re not supposed to like but do. 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