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Kenny Yun in high school with an unidentified friend
Kenny Yun’s solo show at the Marsh Theater in San Francisco, Lettucetown Lies, focuses on his adolescence in mostly white Salinas, nicknamed “the Salad Bowl to the World.” Yun’s family lived two blocks from the lettuce fields, but it wasn’t the smell of fertilizer that was his biggest problem. Yun, the gay son of Korean immigrants, didn’t exactly fit in with his classmates.
The show which is playing this Friday and Saturday at the Marsh, includes Yun’s love of myths, particularly Perseus, impressions of Lucifer with a redneck accent, his visits to his high school bathroom to buy drugs and Donna Summer records, lots of hairspray, and his trip to a Korean summer camp, where his mentor, Song, makes him accepted for the first time in his life.
But most of all the show is about Yun’s friends, who offer each other support in spite of their inability to be honest with one another. Yun definitely wasn’t out in high school, and he finds his friends, Carlin and Michelle, had secrets of their own.
The Marsh’s David Ford was the one who suggested Yun focus on his high school friends and their relationship. When he went into Ford’s workshop on performing your own material, Yun had planned to write about a much bigger time span and about feeling like a disappointment to his parents because he had no interest in golf or becoming a doctor. But Ford, who has taught these workshops for almost 20 years, felt Yun had something special with his high school years.
“Our friends keep us alive in high school,” Ford said. “Kenny was able to find the passion behind that.”
Ford says a lot stands out about Yun’s show: the way he connects to his adolescence, his humor and ability to get at tender moments without being mawkish, his strong writing and his ambition in exploring ancient stories of Greece and Korea in his show.
“Using the mythic stuff the way he does, it’s both comic and operatic,” Ford says. “It’s very bold. You have to have commitment to pull that off.”
Because of its success, the show has been extended through July 25. It shows Friday and Saturday at 8 pm. For tickets, call 800-838-3006 or go to Brown Paper Tickets.
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