After five seasons of TV shows it’s easy to forget that Kim’s Convenience started life as a play at the Toronto Fringe in 2011.  It’s now playing in it’s original stage form at Soulpepper in a production directed by Weyni Mengesha and with playwright Ins Choi this time playing the Appa (father) rather than the son Jung.

Prior to last night I had had no exposure to Kim’s Convenience at all which must have put me in a very small minority among the opening night audience (and perhaps Canadians generally?).  That said, I thought it stood up pretty well as a play.  There have been quite a lot of plays about immigrant experience in Canada since 2011 but the classic storyline of the hardworking first generation parents desperately hoping for a particular kind of successful life for their kids and it not quite working out doesn’t really get old.  What makes Kim’s Convenience stand out is that it’s uncompromising.  Mr. Kim speaks Korean with his wife (Esther Chung) and the accents of the older couple are not toned down in strong contrast to the youngsters’ standard Canadian English.  Mr. Kim’s “lesson” to daughter Janet (Kelly Seo) on how to spot shoplifters would be seen as really offensive if Mr. Kim were white but comes off as uncomfortably funny in this context.

It’s well acted too.  Choi, of course, personifies his character and his slightly bumbling and occasionally violently angry persona comes over well.  The relationship between the estranged son Jung (Ryan Jinn) and his mother is sensitively handled and Seo comes over as a likeable and relatable young woman just trying to be Canadian as she sees it.  Brandon McKnight plays a whole host of minor characters who all happen to be black and is particularly good as the rather tongue tied cop Alex who is smitten by Janet.  He’s also at the heart of the funniest bit of physical comedy in the piece where Mr. Kim puts some kind of Korean death hold on Janet and Alex only to have the tables turned in a particularly excruciating manner.

Bottom line, it’s a relatable comedy with an edge.  Toronto is still the place where no-one is from and Kim’s Convenience deals with one aspect of that more directly and with less sentimentality than some other plays I’ve seen on the same basic theme.  It’s also well acted and directed and backed up by the technical resources of Soulpepper; most effectively used when the stage is transformed by lighting from the default store interior to a church, so it comes over as more polished than some of those other efforts.

Kim’s Convenience continues at Soulpepper until March 2nd.

Photo credits: Dahlia Katz