Theatre review: Ins Choi delivers soul-baring sincerity in Son of a Preacherman
At Pacific Theatre, the celebrated Korean-Canadian artist delves into his upbringing as a preacher’s kid through songs, stories, and snappy humour
Ins Choi: Son of a Preacherman. Photo by Chelsey Stuyt
Pacific Theatre presents Ins Choi: Son of a Preacherman to April 13
NINA SIMONE, ALICE Cooper, Adam Driver—these are just a few of the well-known names who, like writer and performer Ins Choi, grew up as preacher’s kids (or PKs for short). They’re also artists who found their way to the stage after first learning what it feels like to connect with an audience from inside a house of worship.
In Choi’s case, this call toward the theatrical pulpit didn’t come easily. The celebrated Korean-Canadian artist’s journey to accept that longing is what forms the core of Son of a Preacherman, a deeply personal new work that explores the push and pull of his creativity, devotion, family, and self. Directed by Kaitlin Williams, the show approaches these themes with soul-baring sincerity and humour, and a light touch that feels rightly suited to Pacific Theatre’s intimate stage.
Alongside him onstage is a three-piece band made up of artists with backgrounds not too dissimilar from his own: keyboardist Ben Elliott is also a PK, musical director and guitarist Haneul Yi is the son of missionaries, and percussionist Rachel Angco, while not from a similar background, does step in to play Jesus for a brief moment, as well as lend her voice to a graceful solo and the chorus. The music adds energy, levity, and eventually, emotional depth to the show.
Before discovering the lineage of artists who also grew up as PKs, Choi felt isolated by his upbringing, burdened by the high expectations that came with being part of a surprisingly long line of people of the cloth. His stories brim with longing for community, for representation, and like a lot of other immigrant kids, for faces like his in pop culture. “I wish I was Bruce Lee’s best friend in Enter the Dragon,” he sings in one of the show’s early numbers.
It would take decades—and a winding path towards a steady career in the arts—before he created that representation himself, with Kim’s Convenience, the hit stage play turned beloved TV series. If you know and love that show, there’s plenty here that will feel familiar: the way Choi mines intergenerational conflict for both comedy and insight; the tone, which stays heartfelt without becoming overly sentimental; and his knack for zooming in on a culturally specific experience and making it feel relatable.
Son of a Preacherman is undoubtedly more stripped down and reflective, and Choi’s presence naturally holds the room. The anecdotes he shares, drawn from his own life and his family’s, sometimes take on a near-mythic quality. Mentions of struggle and triumph, exodus from Korea, and even a family curse are all threaded throughout the monologue. There’s reverence in the way Choi speaks of his family members, especially his father—who, as the title suggests, looms largest in both memory and metaphor.
Jessica Oostergo’s set, cozy and inviting, feels like a cross between a living room and an artist’s studio. It mirrors Choi’s memory of his father’s study, where milk crates stood in for chairs and sermon notes were written down messily. The hundreds of pages pasted across the set’s walls could easily belong to either the father or the son.
Parallels between preaching and performing permeate the whole show, but they’re never really overstated. Choi lets those connections land often through dry, snappy humour.
Somewhere in all of it, between the jokes and the songs and the stories, there’s also God and struggles with faith. Whether all the themes fully tie together by the end of the show’s 80 minutes is up for debate; some of the songs meant to be introspective feel more like glimpses into much larger topics. But the honesty in how it’s all delivered is hard not to love, as is Choi’s gift for storytelling and the generosity of his performance.
If connection is what young Ins was searching for, he finds it here. 
Related Articles
