A kind of 21st-century Our Town, Kimber Lee’s different words for the same thing[sic] looks at a cross-section of the town of Nampa, Idaho, where green Jello is considered a specialty dessert and the First Church of Nazarene rules the roost.
In a world-premiere production at the Kirk Douglas Theater, Lee’s play tells multiple stories in an impressionistic way, with one short scene following another in cinematic fashion. Sarah Krainin’s large, fast-changing set helps keep the action moving smoothly, even though the key conflict in the two-hour, intermissionless drama is only hinted at for a long while. This serves to defuse the urgency, a flaw the playwright compensates for by writing with a light, witty touch.
The “different words” in the title refer to the ethnic and religious issues that separate the Nampa inhabitants. On one side of the divide are Mexican-Americans, on the other Anglo-Americans–or to put it another way, Catholics versus Protestants. Class is yet another factor, especially in the budding love affair between Sylvie (Savannah Lathem) and her kitchen-worker boyfriend, Frankie (Erick Lopez).
The core conflict of the play emerges in its last third, when Alice (Jackie Chung), the adopted Korean daughter of Marta and Henry (Alyson Reed and Sam Anderson), tries to heal the psychic wounds that have alienated her from them. The fault lies with Marta and Henry, who turned on Alice when their first-born child Maddy (Devin Kelley) was killed in a car crash. “Why should you, an outsider, live when our own real daughter had to die?” pretty much sums up their position. It is to Alice’s credit that she attempts to effect a reconciliation by cooking a Korean dinner, not only for them but all the other warring small-town folk. Make kimchee, not war is the unstated theme of this quirky, warm-hearted play.
Kimber Lee is a promising young playwright, and Center Theater Group has given this early work of hers a splendid production.
