Ins Choi and Esther Chung in “Kim’s Convenience” (2025). Photo by Dahlia Katz
Adam Blanshay Productions presents the Soulpepper Theatre Company production in association with American Conservatory Theater
Presented by The Huntington
Written by Ins Choi
Director – Weyni Mengesha
Cast – Ins Choi, Kelly Seo, Esther Chung, Ryan Jinn, and Brandon McKnight
Set Design – Joanna Yu
Costume Design – Ming Wong
Lighting Design – Wen-Ling Liao
Video and Production Design – Nicole Eun-Ju Bell
Sound Design – Fan Zhang
November 6–30, 2025
The Calderwood Pavilion
Boston Center for the Arts
527 Tremont Street
Boston, MA 02116
Critique by Craig Idlebrook
BOSTON — Some performers become known for and steeped in the same work for years. For a few unfortunate souls, often those only known for one thing, the work becomes a prison as well as a meal ticket, and you watch them grimly go through the motions of performance. For others, the work becomes like a family member the artist can nurture and watch grow; the work may cause them heartache at times, but they still can cradle it with love and find new wonder in it. I suspect playwright and actor Ins Choi’s feelings toward Kim’s Convenience, a play about an imperfect Korean-Canadian family, fall in the latter category, and that may be what makes his return to the stage in the play so poignant to watch.
Kim’s Convenience centers on a watershed moment for a Korean-Canadian family. Mr. Kim, or Appa to his children (Choi), has been running a small convenience store, Kim’s Convenience, in Toronto since his family first emigrated to Canada. It is a family affair, and he has enlisted the often-unwilling help of his now-grown children, Janet (Kelly Seo) and Jung (Ryan Jinn). Jung has long been estranged from the family and is struggling after being convicted of a crime; he only maintains contact through his mother, Umma (Mrs. Kim, played by Esther Chung). Janet is chafing at working at the store indefinitely. She wants to be a photographer instead. A developer (Brandon McKnight, who is brilliant in multiple roles) offers to buy out Mr. Kim to make way for condos, and the shopkeeper finds himself at a crossroads.
This sounds like serious stuff, yet much of the play focuses on the comedic banter of the family and the everyday rhythm of the store. Choi’s script is as if Seinfeld had a heart. Appa and Janet often engage in a war of words, as he tries to teach her about how to pick out shoplifters or why it’s okay to call 911 on Japanese cars parked illegally. Yet each one-liner and laugh is grounded in the inherent tension between the relationships of first-generation and second-generation immigrants, and between parents and their adult children.
Mr. Kim is a force of nature, and not always in a good way. He can be caustic, racist, and even violent, and watching him interact with the outside world can be as nerve-racking as watching a circus performer on a tightrope. His saving grace as a character is that he is as fierce in his love for others as he is in his need to be right.
Choi first premiered this play in 2011 in Toronto, and he morphed it into a Canadian TV show in 2016. When the play was first staged, he played Jung; in this revival, he now plays Appa. In lesser hands, a playwright may have used the opportunity to bask in the glow of the work, and ultimately upstage it. Choi, however, infuses a boyish impishness into Appa that maintains the character’s flawed vulnerability. This allows the other actors not to be fully overshadowed by his presence.
Seo and Choi connect perfectly on stage by not connecting – father and daughter really don’t get each other much at all, but only know for certain that they love each other. Watching the two on stage is like watching an awkward tennis match without an end. If there is a bone to pick with the script, it may be that Mr. Kim does not fully get to feel the weight of his past transgressions in this short play. But because Choi has created such a full world, there is a sense that the story, and the arguments, will continue long after the lights go off at Kim’s Convenience.
