TWO STOP


A Korean convenience store owner and a half-Black, half-Korean teen square off as the Los Angeles riots rage only blocks away in David Johann Kim’s you-are-there-on-the-edge-of-your-seat World Premiere drama Two Stop, the pulse-pounding latest from Ensemble Studio Theatre Los Angeles.

The date is April 29, 1992, sixty-three days since South Central shopkeeper Chul Pak was shot and killed by neighborhood thugs attempting to rob “Two Stop,” and almost that long since his younger brother Jong (JuneSoo Ham) came down from Alaska to take over Chul’s business enterprise, Jong’s sister-in-law having opted to return to Korea following her husband’s death.

It’s also been only hours since the four white police officers accused of assaulting Rodney King were acquitted by an almost entirely Caucasian jury, resulting in stores not far from Two Stop being looted and burned even as 16-year-old G.G. (Tristina Lee) decides to pilfer a half-dozen bologna packs only to be caught in the act by a pistol-packing Jong.

If the confrontation that follows seems more playful than life-threatening, it soon becomes clear that G.G. is no stranger to Jong and that her failed stab at shoplifting was more a game between the middle-aged Korean and the spunky neighborhood teen than anything else.

Not so the wanton violence now being televised on local channels and coming closer and closer to where, over the course of the next an hour and ten minutes, Jong and G.G.—and before long G.G.’s on-again-off-again crack-addicted mother Sunny (Suzen Baraka)—will reveal connections that go back decades, as far back as the 1910-1945 Japanese occupation of Korea, the post-WWII Korean war, and the Vietnam War of the 1960s and ‘70s, and serve as a catalyst for long-buried secrets to at long last be revealed to a heretofore clueless G.G.

Director Tracey A. Leigh keeps the tension and suspense at high-alert level throughout Two Stop’s brief but just-right running time, eliciting a trio of electrifying star turns from Ham as a battle-scarred but fiercely resilient June, Lee as the defiantly feisty, achingly vulnerable G.G., and Baraka as the rage-filled, raw-nerved Sunny.

Production designer Justin Huen and props designer Dana Schwartz have converted Ensemble Studio Theatre Los Angeles’s 50-seat space into a convenience store where audience members can actually purchase items from “Jong” before becoming flies on the wall as the action unfolds.

Xinyuan Lee’s stark lighting design, Austin Quan’s pulsating, suspense-upping sound design, and the latter’s video-design mix of local TV footage and a “live” black-and-white security camera feed combine to create palpable tension and authenticity, and Maria S. Hong has designed costumes that suit each character to a T. (Chuma Gault is video effects director.)

Last but not least, fight coordinator Yvans Jourdain has all three cast members doing bonus combat duty in this most physically and emotionally challenging of plays.

Two Stop is produced by Michaela Bulkley and Leigh. Associate producer Ashley Weaver doubles as production stage manager with production support by Lizzy Ross. Brad Bentz is technical director. Joe Luis Cedillo is dramaturg. Gault is in charge of weapons safety. Susan Gordon is publicist.

Iyanna Jennaé shares the role of G.G. with Lee.

It’s been thirty-two years since Los Angeles erupted in violence over the course of six seemingly endless days and nights.

David Johann Kim’s Pang Spa (running next door to Two Stop) examines their effects on a Korean-American family more than three decades later.

Two Stop takes a more immediate look at the day it all exploded, and does so to absolutely riveting effect. Both World Premiere plays are not to be missed.

Ensemble Studio Theatre/LA @ Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave., Atwater Village.
www.estlosangeles.org

–Steven Stanley
May 23, 2024
Photos: Hope Burleigh

 

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