Set in a family-run Regent Park variety store, Kim’s Convenience tells the story of the Korean-Canadian Kim family as they navigate the complicated relationships they have with one another, and make choices about their future that will have lasting consequences.
Kim’s Convenience has a long history on the Canadian stage, winning the New Play Contest at the Toronto Fringe Festival in 2011, being mounted at Soulpepper, and touring across the country, but this was the first time I’d seen the show. I’m delighted to say that Kim’s Convenience lived up to the hype. The play is hilarious, heartfelt, and moving, resulting in a standing ovation at the performance I attended.
Paul Sun-Hyung Lee is a standout in a universally strong cast, as he depicts Appa’s struggle with the knowledge that neither of his children want to take over the store when he retires. When he receives a fair offer from a real estate agent to sell the store as the neighbourhood gentrifies, Lee’s nuanced performance balances the choice between leaving the store, which Appa considers to be his story, to his children, and retirement.
What truly makes the play are the relationships it depicts, each with a different but equally compelling dynamic. Jean Yoon is subtle but effective as Umma, the steadfast wife who also maintains surreptitious contact with estranged son Jung (Richard Lee) through church. Their brief a capella duet makes for a touching moment in the show, as does the reveal that she is a grandmother for the first-time. Jung is a relatable character, having had an epiphany in his early thirties that he feels left behind by his friends and is unhappy with the form his life has taken. The relationship between Jung and Appa is fraught and largely unseen but certainly alluded to until a climactic scene in the second act, while the nervous but earnest connection between Janet (an excellent Rosie Simon) and police officer Alex (Ronnie Rowe Jr.), a childhood crush, as they fall for one another adds a lighter note.
It was Janet’s relationship with her father that resonated the most with me though. Appa wants Janet to take over the store after he retires, but thirty-year-old photographer Janet has dreams of her own. Although there is obviously love between them, both Janet and Appa feel unappreciated and that tension comes to a head in an argument about taking out the garbage. The audience can see both sides of the argument and I think it’s a very realistic disagreement as both parents and their children feel frustration when they perceive themselves to be undervalued by family.
Of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that Kim’s Convenience is as funny as it is touching. Although far from politically correct, I laughed at Appa’s detailed racial profiling of customers most likely to be thieves in “steal or no steal”, and at the opening jokes about boycotting Japanese products.
The play features realistic, flawed, and fully formed characters, and is a loving portrait of the City of Toronto and its diversity.
I’ve since finished watching the first season of the CBC television sitcom of the same name, and while I mostly enjoyed the TV show (it takes a few episodes to get into and the pilot was perhaps not the best choice for an opening episode), I do feel like the longer format means that it suffers somewhat in comparison. The compact self-contained nature of the play makes for jokes that land each time and for emotional resolution that is incredibly effective.
Kim’s Convenience plays until March 4, 2017, at Soulpepper Theatre.
You can also catch the play in July 2017, at the Pershing Square Signature Center in New York City.
Photo of Paul Sun-Hyung Lee by Cylla von Tiedemann
Fantasy is sometimes viewed as a genre dominated by white male writers and the same ideas, but the way that Robert Jackson Bennett writes women and women of colour is truly exceptional. The protagonists of his two books are an intelligent spy WoC torn between her passion for history and her practical career as an operative, and a disabled middle-aged WoC retired general with a foul mouth. Both are three-dimensional, nuanced, flawed characters that I would rank among my top female fictional characters from any form of media. The world building in this series is some of the best I’ve ever read and the mythology involved is a delight, especially if you grew up on greek myths like I did. Completely engaging and written with beautiful prose. The third book in the series comes out in May so I highly recommend catching up now!
The kind of novel that you find yourself thinking about days and even weeks later, despite it being a quick read (I finished it in 24 hours). I loved how the author got into the heads of Lydia, elder jealous brother Nath, younger forgotten sister Hannah, and parents James and Marilyn, who mean well but each pin their separate hopes and dreams for themselves on their middle daughter. The prose is absolutely exquisite throughout as the author explores themes of racism and sexism of 1970s America. It’s a quiet book but such a stunning read that I’d wholeheartedly recommend to anyone.
This series has special meaning to me because the author of this series introduced me to the works of Dorothy Dunnett, my favourite author, when she discussed authors who have inspired her. Indeed, if you’ve ever read Lymond you’ll recognize a lot of those books in the Captive Prince series. I also have a long history with Captive Prince itself, as I was reading the series as far back as 2009 when it was published in parts on livejournal. I received email alerts when the author had updated with a new chapter and looked forward to these updates throughout grad school. Seeing it all brought to a great conclusion this year in print form meant so much to me. Seeing the relationship between Damen and Laurent build over the course of the books from open hatred to grudging respect and unresolved sexual tension to finally love was so gratifying and I enjoyed the writing style, the wit and antics of Laurent in particular, and the wonderfully plotted court intrigue.
impose their values and norms upon her nation, disposing of one of her fathers in the process. She decides to tear down an empire from within, joining the Masquerade in order to set her people free (fantasy)
Political intrigue fantasy featuring, in the words of the author, “snarky antiheroes, machiavellian lesbians, and the enemies-to-lovers trope” (fantasy/romance)
The collected first three books in this series topped my personal 2015 Best Books of the Year list. I definitely have my quibbles with the final book in the series, but this is one of those cases where even a book that I didn’t love as much as some of its predecessors is so far above many of the other novels out there that it doesn’t matter. Parts of the end made me squeal out loud and have to put the book down for some air. Parts of it were so creepy that I warned an easily spooked friend that this was not something she should be reading before bed. It was a hell of a ride and bidding goodbye to these characters was incredibly bittersweet as they have all meant so much to me. This remains one of my favourite all-time book series, with characters who are flawed and feel real, and beautiful prose.
Red London magician Kell, who can travel between worlds, meets adventurous thief Lila Bard from a London without magic and they go on an adventure. I loved both serious Kell and the defiant “I do what I want” Lila and the odd couple way these characters play off each other. As is so important to me in fantasy, the world building of each London is really fascinating and I loved the setting that incorporates Mad King George III, as Georgian England is one of my favourite historical periods. An enjoyable fast-paced series with likable characters. Stay tuned for my review of the final book in the series, A Conjuring of Light, in March!
Dystopia about a world where massive earthquakes and other disasters wipe out chunks of civilization every few hundred years. People who have the power to control and create earthquakes are feared and used, brainwashed from a young age to obey “for their own good”. (Fantasy)
Spotlight on Stories 