In this solo performance at Edlavitch DC Jewish Community Center’s Theater J under the direction and dramaturgy of Zaraawar Mistry, returning after a string of performances here earlier this year, writer and performer Sun Mee Chomet recounts not only the largely unkind bureaucracy she fought through to find her birth parents as an adult after being given up for adoption at six months old but also the challenges she faced upon finding them. The play first recounts the search for the rewards of being loved, then illuminates the mortifying ordeal of being known, and is structured as such in two acts. Chomet is a masterful performer, incorporating impressions and dance into her time on stage. Her scriptwriting walks the perfect line between stream-of-consciousness, personal and emotional thinking, and organized storytelling. She is a joy to watch, and the phenomenal lighting work from Jesse Belsky differentiating characters and narrative moments makes her even more so. Sun Mee Chomet in ‘How to Be a Korean Woman.’ Photo by Ryan Maxwell. Sun Mee Chomet was adopted by a Protestant mother and Jewish father and only had the resources to seek out her birth parents as an adult in her late thirties. After having claimed to have exhausted alternative methods of finding her birth parents, Chomet’s adoption agency caseworker suggests that Chomet try a particularly gauche Korean reality TV show that helps adoptees find their birth parents. Reluctantly, Chomet agrees, fueled by her last shred of hope to submit to manifold indignities along the way. Following numerous trials involving tasteless show executives, Chomet reunites with her birth mother. But the reunion is not completely joyful. Chomet’s birth mother’s current husband is abusive, and his learning about her child born out of wedlock — at age 19, no less — would result in her “losing everything, including contact with her two sons.” Chomet is kept a secret, and her reunion with her mother after all those decades is tainted by the covertness of their interactions. After overcoming the odds to find her birth parents, Chomet’s experience meeting her mother is fraught with fear of her current husband finding out, shame from an element of her identity out of her control, and dashed hopes of starting anew with a birth family that would embrace her unconditionally. Both the first and second halves of the show — searching for and finding Chomet’s birth mother, and the aftermath of secret outings with her mother, aunts, and grandmothers to visit malls, relatives’ graves, secret bars, adoptee reunions, and more — focus on the coarse reality of being an adoptee, but address this question with arguably opposite storytelling structures. The first half, by the nature of its lost-to-found narrative, has a tightly written exposition, rising action, climax, and resolution. The second half of the show is less tightly written, with less clear direction — even if that structure corresponds with Chomet’s lived experience going from brief experience to brief experience, each of which raised enormous and narratively significant new questions for her to grapple with. Chomet’s quest for unconditional love in a world fixed against you is the overarching narrative of the show: the general relevance of the anecdotes in the second half to that narrative should be enough to make the show’s latter part structurally satisfying, but it doesn’t quite hit the mark. Sun Mee Chomet in ‘How to Be a Korean Woman.’ Photo by Ryan Maxwell. In the first half of this show, Chomet shares little about her plans for what to do after she finds her mother — which is of course incredibly realistic. But because no mention of these plans is included in the first act, the one narrative thread we want to see tied up in this section is for her to find her birth parents, which she does. Thus, like Chomet, we almost forget to wonder about what she should or could do once they are found: she even acknowledges that upon finding her birth mother, she “lost motivation.” She had been single-mindedly working to find her mother for so long — she wasn’t sure it would even happen, and once she found her mother, she found herself unsure of how to proceed, overwhelmed and confused by all that was happening to her. But I couldn’t escape the feeling that more could have been done to structure the second act in a way that didn’t feel so fundamentally different from the narratively captivating first act. The first act has set us up to anticipate another immersive and tightly written rising action and climax. It is likely that the second act’s structure would not stick out as being so different and comparatively unsatisfying as it is if the first act were not so tightly wound around traveling from point A to point B. But crucially: no real-life story fits into a story structure. We should not give Joseph Campbell that kind of power over our lives. As I developed this reaction to this show, I felt uneasy — is it appropriate to say that experiences should be adjusted in their retelling to suit conventional story structure? Especially when using conventional and then unconventional structure more accurately matches Chomet’s real-life experience? I found myself thinking that it would even help the show if the second half’s narrative chaos were addressed — but even suggesting this feels like asking for Chomet’s baring of her soul around the greatest challenges of her life to be properly plated and garnished with a maraschino cherry for easier consumption by audiences. At the end of the day, who are we to tell Chomet to change the way that she expresses her life story, especially one as heartbreaking and harrowing as this one? And I am not an adoptee, and I’m a quarter-Vietnamese, not Korean or culturally Asian. I am not meant to identify with the intricacies of these experiences. An adoptee of any race would likely feel deeply seen by the depiction of narrative variance on stage in the second half. Still, I can’t help but feel that the show would not lose any impact on those who share in Chomet’s experiences if the second half were organized around fewer ideas, and led to a second rising action and climax. This show is affecting regardless of your background or experiences: don’t we all search for unconditional love? Chomet’s description of this quest as it has taken form in her life may put some of the deepest questions on your own heart into words. Running Time: 85 minutes with no intermission. How to Be a Korean Woman plays through September 22, 2024, presented by Theater J at the Aaron & Cecile Goldman Theater in the Edlavitch DC Jewish Community Center, 1529 16th Street NW, Washington, DC. Purchase tickets ($50–$70, with member and military discounts available) online, by calling the ticket office at 202-777-3210, or by email ([email protected]). To read the program online, click here. To read the Audience Guide, click here. COVID Safety: Masks optional. SEE ALSO: ‘Suddenly, I didn’t know who I was,’ says Sun Mee Chomet as her hit ‘How to Be a Korean Woman’ returns to Theater J (interview by Ravelle Brickman, September 3, 2024) A daughter aches to connect with her birth mother, in ‘How to Be a Korean Woman’ at Theater J (review of the previous run by Lisa Traiger, January 8, 2024)