Theater review: ‘Kim’s Convenience’ a smart, compelling choice by Westport Playhouse

In its latest clever move in what is one of the most exciting Connecticut theater season schedules of this year, Westport Country Playhouse is staging “Kim’s Convenience,” a rich, deep and compelling comedy/drama whose themes of immigration and disrupted families continue to resonate.

The production is everything you would want it to be. If you’re a fan of the TV show, it informs that enthusiasm with different interpretations. If you don’t know the show, this is a strong play on its own terms. The cast of four Asian and one Black actors brings a special style, tone and perspective.

Dozens of theater plays have been turned into TV series, everything from “The Front Page” and “You Can’t Take It With You” to “Hot L Baltimore.” But the list of successful transitions from stage to small screen is remarkably short. There’s “The Odd Couple,” and in more recent years there’s “Fleabag.”

And there’s also “Kim’s Convenience,” the hit Canadian sitcom that ran for five seasons (a total of 65 episodes) from 2016-21. The show can still be found on Netflix.

The “Kim’s Convenience” play has its own enviable history outside of the TV series based upon it. A massive success at the 2011 Toronto Fringe Festival led to a long-running Canadian production in 2012, a national tour and an off-Broadway production in 2017.

There are key differences between the play and the series. Both are led by the cantankerous elderly Mr. Kim (played by David Shih) who runs a convenience store in downtown Toronto’s Regent Park neighborhood. Both follow the strained relationships among Kim, who is mainly addressed as “Appa,” meaning dad; his wife (Chuja Seo, Umma to his Appa); their daughter Janet (Cindy Im, bringing a great emotional intensity to a role that some might undervalue as lighter or more comical); and estranged son Jung (Hyunmin Rhee, who makes the character a compelling lost soul in the best Eugene O’Neill or Chekhov tradition).

In the play, Janet — an aspiring professional photographer who has no desire to follow her father into the family business — is 30, a decade older than she is in the TV show. This makes her parents’ pushing her to find a romantic relationship and get married all the more desperate and awkward. Jung, who ran away from the family in his teens is more guarded and remote in the stage version and he turns the story into one of salvation.

As in the series, Appa is prone to leash uncomfortable racist diatribes at the slightest provocation. He profiles potential shoplifters and calls the cops on people who drive Japanese-made cars. His allegiance to his native country is demonstrated by the history tests he inflicts on his children. As with all family dramas, not to mention sitcoms, that feature an unyielding, intransigent patriarch, Appa’s edicts and values are inevitably challenged.

The racially motivated outbursts have a real impact in a live theater situation. Appa is an honestly complicated character, and that includes having some despicable traits that are very credibly dramatized.

Playwright Ins Choi was born in South Korea and raised in Toronto and based “Kim’s Convenience” on immigrant experiences he observed in his youth, as well on his own time as a convenience store clerk. He played the role of the son Jung in all the early productions of the play.

Choi clearly wasn’t brainstorming a sitcom when he wrote this play. It can be a bright ensemble comedy, but that’s deceptive, since its themes of upheaval in an already dysfunctional family can get very dark. In fresh comments on his work, found in the show’s playbill, Choi notes the rise in Asian hate crimes since the pandemic, describes the act of continuing to tell stories about his heritage as a sort of politic activism and concludes that “stories are disarming, engaging our imaginations and viscerally reminding us of when we were all a little more supple.”

“Kim’s Convenience” is directed by Nelson T. Eusebio III. As a student at the Yale (now Geffen) School of Drama 15 years ago, Eusebio, who is now the associate artistic director of Kansas City Rep, helmed a very different sort of ensemble theater experience, “Marat/Sade,” where the audience had to look down into a pit at writhing asylum inmates. This time, the environment is an uncannily realistic convenience store created by scenic designer You-Shin Chen. The store is so convincing that you may find yourself thinking you should pick up a few things there before you leave the theater.

Eusebio uses the layout of an actual convenience store, with its too-tight aisles and too-wide freezer doors to create some marvelous little set pieces of everyday exasperation. The script is not afraid of hitting extremes and becoming unbelievable for the sake of a joke or a heart-wrenching moment, but Eusebio grounds it.

Another reason “Kim’s Convenience” works uniquely well on stage is Choi’s smart idea of having everyone who’s not a member of the Kim family all played by the same actor. At the Westport Playhouse, Eric R. Williams plays a succession of convenience store customers, a local businessman and a cop. There’s not a lot of pretense to this, with Williams donning fake wigs (and in one case a not very well secured mustache) to change characters quickly. The awareness of the gimmick is what makes it work. You look forward to each of his appearances and then are rewarded when one of his fleeting characters becomes a major one as the plot develops.

“Kim’s Convenience” encompasses romance, drama, insult comedy, mystery, danger, thievery, comic violence, potato chips and much more. Westport Playhouse was smart to choose it, and shows how the material can still fit our rapidly changing times.

“Kim’s Convenience” runs through July 17 at Westport Country Playhouse, 25 Powers Court, Westport. Performances are Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 3 and 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. $40-$60. westportplayhouse.org.

Christopher Arnott can be reached at carnott@courant.com