Ins Choi and Brandon McKnight Photo by Dahlia Katz

Kim's Convenience, which opened last night at American Conservatory Theater's Toni Rembe Theatre (a co-production with Toronto's Soulpepper Theatre Company and Adam Blanshay Productions), is the story of Mr. Kim (Ins Choi), more familiarly know as Appa, and his wife Umma (Esther Chung), immigrants from Korea who have opened a convenience store in Toronto's Regent Park neighborhood, as many Korean emigres did during the 1980s. Appa hopes his daughter Janet (Kelly Seo) will take over the store for her aging father, but Janet has dreams of becoming a professional photographer. Younger son Jung (Ryan Jinn) left home at 16, taking with him the contents of the store's safe, leading to a complete estrangement from his father and only minimal contact with Umma.

Most of the play focuses not on this conflict, but on more pedestrian matters of running the store. At lights up (on a set by Joanna Yu that reeks with verisimilitude of Canadian culture, featuring products like Shreddies cereal, Choco-Pie, and Caramilk candy bars), Appa enters, quietly singing to himself as he performs his morning store-opening rituals: putting the cash drawer in the register, turning on lights, stocking shelves and unlocking the door. After all, as Appa says late in the proceedings, "this store is my story."

When Janet appears, the conflict begins, with Appa attempting to "train" Janet to run the store, despite her protestations that this is not the life she has imagined for herself. "Don't you want me to succeed in life?" she asks, seemingly unaware of how deeply this must cut her father, though Appa's stoic expression reveals nothing. As he runs through a litany of which customers are more likely to steal–"Black guy, brown shoes - no steal. One lesbian, whistling - steal. Two lesbians - no steal."–Janet chides her father: "That is so awkwardly racist."

When Mr. Lee ("black man with Korean name"), a local real estate agent (one of several roles played by Brandon McKnight) appears with a generous offer to purchase the store in the gentrifying neighborhood, enough to fund a comfortable retirement, Appa refuses the offer, still clinging to the hope that Janet will change her mind.

After the success of Kim's Convenience in Toronto, the show was turned into a sitcom of the same name, and it's easy to see how the play could serve as a sort of pilot episode for a comedy series. It establishes a cast of characters, each with their own desires and goals. The location is ripe for a range of interactions and–given the single location–helps keep the budget down. As a stand-alone play, however, Kim's Convenience is vaguely unsatisfying. There's nothing specifically wrong about the play, it's just that it feels like a lot of setup for action still to come. Though the final resolution is a lovely, touching moment.

Choi's characters are nicely drawn, and since Choi not only wrote the show but also stars as Appa, he clearly has a deep understanding of Appa that comes blazing through in his performance of this tough but ultimately tender-hearted man trying to make a way for his family in a new country. Esther Chung plays Umma with a quiet deference and sense of fierce loyalty, but she seems like an afterthought whose main purpose is to reconnect with their prodigal son. Kelly Seo is terrific as Janet, displaying a quiet (sometimes not so quiet) confidence mixed with a vague sense of embarrassment, as though the store is there only as her launching pad into her own life. Brandon McKnight may have the most challenging task, not because of the emotional depth of his roles, but because he clearly has to make several quick changes offstage, transforming from casual thief to real estate agent to cop.

This production is directed by Weyni Mengesha and was first staged at Toronto's Soulpepper Theatre earlier this year, featuring the same cast. Familiarity with the text and each other shows in the pacing and timing of the action. Mengesha and his cast clearly know where the laughs will come, as well as when deeper emotions will rise to the surface, enabling the play to rocket along, keeping the audience fully engaged.

Kim's Convenience is not a perfect play, but it just might be perfectly entertaining–until the final moments reach out to touch your heart, and it becomes something with much greater depth.

Kim's Convenience runs through October 19, 2025, at American Conservatory Theater, Toni Rembe Theater, 415 Geary Street, San Francisco CA. Performances are Tuesdays at 6:30pm, Wednesdays-Thursdays at 7:30pm, Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00pm, Wednesdays and Saturdays at 2:00pm and Sundays at 1:00 pm. Tickets range from $25-$110, plus fees. For tickets and information, please visit http://www.act-sf.org.