Review: KIM'S CONVENIENCE at Everyman Theatre

Kim’s Convenience, written by Ins Choi and directed by Cara Hinh is a deft comedy about a family that loves one another but doesn’t quite know how to talk to each another.

Set largely inside a small Korean-Canadian convenience store in Toronto, the play centers on Appa (Tony K. Nam) and Umma (Tuyet Thi Pham), immigrants who have built a business and a life while raising their Canadian-born children, Janet (Jenny S. Lee) and Jung (Jae Woo). The store is more than a setting. It is Appa’s kingdom, livelihood and legacy. It is also a question: What happens to everything you sacrificed to build when your children don’t want to inherit it?

Nam gets considerable comic mileage from Appa, whose opinions about customers, race, religion, dating and almost everything else arrive bluntly and generally without invitation. He takes Appa from outrageous to funny to maddening  to the heart of the character’s uncertainty. Appa worries about losing his family, his culture and perhaps his place in the world. The store has told him who he is for years. What happens when the next generation doesn’t need it—or him—in quite the same way?

Nam and Lee spar engagingly in a clash of generations. She is the daughter who loves her father but has no intention of leading the life he planned for her.  Unfortunately, no one informed Appa that the plan has been canceled.

Their arguments are funny because they are familiar. Parent and child talk at each other, around each other and occasionally past each other. Yet beneath the sparring is something neither quite manages to say: I love you, but I need you to see me as I am.

Sometimes, complications simply walk through the front door, usually in the form of Austin Michael Young, who delightfully plays an array of characters who give Appa business while disturbing his peace. Lee and Young create entertaining sparks when Young appears as Janet’s childhood friend, now a potential love interest. Appa immediately intervenes, racing from suspicion to “let’s get married tomorrow.” Janet is still single at thirty, running around being a photographer, and Appa can’t let this go on.

Jung’s estrangement from Appa gives the comedy its darker edge. Their history gradually reveals fractures in this apparently cheerful family that cannot simply be laughed away. Pride has a long shelf life, especially in families. So does hurt.

Umma, meanwhile, operates more quietly between husband and children, employing patience, faith and a certain amount of maternal maneuvering to keep everyone connected. She understands something the others are slower to learn: being right and keeping a family together are not always the same thing.

Woo and Pham carry much of the dramatic weight, mixing desperation and compassion into the comedy. Woo is sympathetic as Jung struggles to find a way out of a long and painful estrangement. Pham is simply transcendent as the graceful, patient mother. She is one of those actors whose expressions alone can convey what a page of dialogue cannot.

What distinguishes Kim’s Convenience from more sentimental family comedies is Choi’s refusal to make assimilation an uncomplicated triumph or tradition an uncomplicated virtue. Appa can be prejudiced and maddening; Janet can be immature and impatient; Jung has made serious mistakes. Nobody gets to be entirely right. That is probably why they feel like a family rather than an argument constructed by a playwright.

In this little store at the corner of a big city, customers come and go. Products disappear from shelves. Neighborhoods change. Children grow up. Appa keeps standing behind the counter, trying to stubbornly preserve something in a world that refuses to stop moving.

KIM’S CONVENIENCE runs now through September 27, 2026 at the Everyman Theatre, located at 315 West Fayette Street. For tickets and more information call (410) 752-2208 or go to www.everymantheatre.org

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