Zoe Kim (Photo: Emma Zordan)
Did You Eat?
By Julia Polinsky
Did You Eat?, the current offering from the Ma-Yi Theater Company’s residence at the Public Theater, belongs firmly in the realm of solo performances standing in for therapy, with an excellent performer but a difficult book.
In Did You Eat?, Korean-American Zoë Kim, the playwright and performer, shepherds the audience through a lifetime – her own lifetime – of abuse, loneliness, trauma responses, and, finally, healing. She speaks frequently, and feelingly, of love languages; “Did you eat,” practically her mother’s only memorable, repeated question, turns out to mean, “I love you.” You’d never know it, though, without Kim’s narration.
Throughout Did You Eat?, Kim addresses a glowing orb as “you.” A departure from the usual solo show direct-to-audience speechifying, this neat technique makes it possible for an audience to listen to the litany of misery and horrors that infuse her childhood and young adulthood, in Korea and in the US, without overmuch pain. The orb is visually lovely but of course cannot respond to what it “hears.” That task is left to the audience, who gasp and cringe as the terrible tale of the despised daughter unfolds. Sometimes, Kim speaks Korean, with English translations projected; mostly in English, she makes the point that the language we use is the language of love, requited or not. The orb may be a visible stand-in for her own inner light; if so, it’s a little light to be asked to shine that much.
Zoe Kim (Photo: Emma Zordan)
An unwanted daughter in a family that values only sons, dismissed and loveless from birth forward, she becomes an expert in loneliness and the trauma response of noon-chi, the Korean art of gauging other people’s moods. She needs this skill to survive, for instance, her father beating her with a golf club if she makes mistakes in vocabulary study. She needs it to cope with her mother’s brutal meanness, selfishness and denial.
The details of life with her parents are distressing enough to make anyone put up emotional barriers, but when they send her off to the US, her isolation becomes total. Language barrier? Check. Distance, both physical and emotional? Check. Dad cuts off financial support and mom only calls when she wants money? Check, check, check.
How she survives this endless sorrow and becomes whole enough to love a husband (and a very cute dog), the more or less happy ending, is a mystery. In a 65-minute show, something’s gotta give, and the healing details just suddenly appear – the theater equivalent of, “Then, a miracle occurred.” You’re relieved for her, if not actually happy, and maybe not really convinced.
Zoe Kim (Photo: Emma Zordan)
All through Did You Eat?, she moves around, behind, and through Tanya Orellana’s interesting and useful scenic design, Minjoo Jim’s lighting, and Yee Eun Nam’s projections. Director Chris Yejin and choreographer Iris McCloughan give Kim splendid opportunities to show her expressive, skilled, beautifully poetic and evocative movement. She dances her show, every gesture fraught with meaning, from her terrible childhood to her healed adult.
In the Playbill, Kim writes a wish for the audience: “I wish… for Fathers to value their daughters. For Mothers to believe their daughters.” She goes on to hope that we use our own love languages, and finally, “… For you to practice radical love for yourself and for others.”
Then asks, “Did you eat?” and leaves that love language there.
At the Public Theater
425 Lafayette St.
Through November 16, 2025
