Though Kim’s Convenience, now having its run at Center Theatre Group, is enjoyable in its many funny and touching moments, Ins Choi‘s 2011 play is very much outdated in its necessity to showcase Korean identity and culture that is completely catered to white people.

Despite a well rounded cast and excellent direction by Weyni Mengesha, the play has the feel of a fluffy primetime comedy that ties up its loose traumatic elements in a neat 90-minute bow.

This award-winning comedy drama, which inspired the Netflix hit, is a hilarious, feel-good story about a Korean family-run corner store. Mr. Kim works hard to support his wife and children with his Toronto convenience store. As he evaluates his future, he faces both a changing neighborhood landscape and the gap between his values and those of his Canadian-born children. Playwright Ins Choi, who will also star in the production as the titular character, calls Kim’s Convenience his “love letter to his parents and to all first-generation immigrants who call Canada their home.”

I know I’m coming off hot with criticism already for this beloved Korean Canadian play, which has been produced many times throughout Canada and the United States as well as being the source for the TV series. But as someone who wasn’t quite a fan of the show itself, I was curious to see if the original source material fared better. In a nutshell? Yes but… somewhat.

One thing for sure, the accent work is much better with the playwright Ins Choi doing a more accurate Korean accent than whatever one Paul Sun-Hyung Lee hadin the TV show. While I do question why the playwright inserted himself in playing the main character, Choi does a fine job with Appa. And at a brisk 90 minutes, there is energy and pace that doesn’t feel like it drags anywhere.

The rest of the ensemble cast are excellent with Kelly Seo, Brandon McKnight, Esther Chung, and Ryan Jinn but as extremely competent as the cast are, they are met with the hard challenge of playing very unlikeable characters (with the exception of McKnight’s) that wasn’t quite overcome by their performances. And when it comes to Umma (Esther Chung), her character was so criminally underwritten that I sincerely wish there were revisions in the 15 years this play has been around.

This, however, is only the beginning of the issues I have with the script as it handles their familial trauma way too neatly that while I understand this play was written with a broader audience (white people) in mind in a comedic light hearted sense, there are some truly serious issues brought up that are hard to ignore.

The most serious one is that Appa has a serious temper and as brought up by both the son Jung (Ryan Jinn) and Janet (Kelly Seo), that temper has resulted in not treating his wife like a slave but a domestic abuse incident where Appa hit Jung so hard that the son had to be in the hospital for a few days. Being in a Korean household myself where I have experienced similar hardships, I found it unbelievable that the son would even consider coming back home after running away at the age of 16.

These issues are only made more difficult that most of the family members were unlikeable with the son complaining about his wife, son, his job, and his unhappy life to the daughter complaining about just wanting being a photographer (that she isn’t making a living out of) and the simple act of taking out the garbage. While I realize I most definitely sound like Appa with how ungrateful the daughter is behaving for being given the option to run the store and continue her photographer hobby side job, it certainly doesn’t help her case.

The mother, Umma, has really one ‘meaningful’ scene to call her own and it is a disappointingly unfulfilling one as we never really get to see from her perspective the hardships she had dealing with her temperamental and abusive husband. When it comes to dealing and recovering from such family trauma, especially when abuse is involved, I could not believe all of this could be resolved so neatly with the son and daughter nor could I ignore the lack of any confrontation with the mother to her husband.

The only character who is more or less written fine is Mike (Brandon McKnight) who also does a great job with handling the other side characters that pop up in the convenience store. While I was greatly worried that there would be some form of a Black and Korean dispute taking place at a convenience store, there was a great comedic moment with Appa explaining his very bizarre yet hilarious deduction of who steals and who doesn’t.

There were also many other comedic moments that did make me laugh out loud from its meet-cute moments between Janet and Mike or any interactions Appa has with the ensemble cast, though I do realize that there are a bit too many hyuck hyuck ethnic comedy moments that can only be described as the kind written for white people to laugh and go “oh gosh I must be so silly and ignorant” and go on with their day.

It is interesting nowadays to watch plays written anytime before 2020 and now fully realizing that these plays that focus so much on ethnicity and culture for laughs or tears is not a element we need to keep pressing on. Rather, we must advocate for universal stories that uses such identity aspects in a more subtle manner and encourage theatre companies to take chances with such stories.

Finally, I am noticing that theatre companies are declaring that global majority immigrant stories are acts of resistance and while that much is true, I still very much dare theatre companies across the United States (especially in Los Angeles) to put up Palestinian stories and similar materials that truly challenge the status quo.

All of these criticisms aside, it doesn’t take away the one major positive part of the play being all around enjoyable to watch… as long as you don’t think too hard about the traumatic aspects or how much it needs to remind you it’s a Korean play. Kim’s Convenience is playing from March 21 to April 19 at the Ahmanson Theatre (135 North Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90012). 90 minutes, no intermission. Thursdays at 2:00 p.m., Tuesday through Thursday evenings at 7:30 p.m., Fridays at 8:00pm, Saturdays at 2:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m., and Sundays at 1:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. You can buy tickets here.