Before Kim’s Convenience became a hit Netflix series, it was a play on the Toronto fringe. Now, Ins Choi’s comedy drama turned sitcom, about the travails of a Korean Canadian family running a convenience store, returns to theatrical form but feels like a melange of two media.
The cast is not that of the TV show, and Choi himself plays outspoken father, Appa, but the production has the uncanny, slightly confusing, look and feel of a live TV studio recording. It is a smooth machine of a show nonetheless: its comedy works, its acting superb, its story warm but not too mawkish and its characters lovable even when they border on the prejudiced, like Appa. Masterfully directed by Esther Jun, this is popcorn theatre: we could go on watching and watching.
