‘Did You Eat?’ by Zoë Kim @ Amphibian Stage
Photos by Evan Michael Woods
—Jan Farrington
“When you are not fed love on a silver spoon,
You learn to lick it off knives.”
Korean American playwright Zoë Kim’s Did You Eat?, a memory play that leads us through her distressing and often cruel relationships with her mother and father (both as a child and adult), ultimately is more hopeful than it may sound.
As she did when the play was developed and premiered in 2023 at Amphibian Stage’s annual SparkFest, the playwright plays herself, and the excellent director Chris Yegin is still, as they say, “attached” to the show—which has since had a premiere run in Boston and two in New York City, most recently at the Public Theater.
So, as Amphibian artist director Jay Duffer said in opening night remarks, this is “a homecoming” for the show. It has a theatrical root system here, if that doesn’t sound too fanciful—and I have a sense that it shows in the deep attention that’s been paid to the design, language, and movement aspects of the presentation. Both Kim as a person, and the action of the play, pull us slowly into what begins to feel like a family circle of caring. No violence is wholly shown onstage, though the trauma is shown forcefully—and murmurs of concern from the audience punctuated the moments.
Zhuosi “Joyce” He’s striking set design is a curving cream wall encircling the space, with a round opening at the top, leading to darkness. “A womb,” I heard, and as the play moved along, I didn’t find a reason to disagree. At either end, undulating flat surfaces for seating or standing, and one glowing, gourd-like orb drawing the eye.
Kim welcomes us, but keeps a running monologue directed at the orb—she calls it “you,” meaning Zoë herself in all the variations of her life thus far. She is telling us her story in a mix of English and Korean, and playing the characters of her parents, grandmother, and others. The creamy walls are a perfect surface for designer Roma Flowers’ translation of the Korean dialogue—I loved having the lines exist within the space of the play, not pinned to a static spot for “subtitles.” Flowers also creates a moving and evocative series of projections—of smoke, clouds, flower petals and more.
As she tells of past and present—the major disaster of her existence being that Zoë is not the son her parents wanted—Kim’s words are paired and empowered by a flow of choreographed movement. She whirls, bends, crouches, and mourns. The dual focus adds dimension and feeling to everything she says—a creative partnership between the actor and choreographer Iris McCloughan that adds tremendously force to the solo performance.
Are her parents monsters? Her mother’s question “Did you eat?” is the closest she ever comes to saying that she loves her daughter. Her father beats her with golf clubs; her mother consoles by telling her “he’s fixing you, because he loves you.” They send her to America for an education (“Nobody wants you around!”), but with mixed intentions that lead to a near-deadly encounter with her father, and endless messages of “send more money” from her mother.
No matter, says Zoë to the orb, “you become a fierce woman.” These are very different cultural rules and assumptions at work here—but then again, how many fraught stories have we heard of America’s parenting? Her strength grows, along with shoots of hope…and she does find ways to recognize love when it’s literally in the room. Kim is definitely a survivor, and even comes through with a rueful and well-earned sense of battlefield humor intact.
Did You Eat? is a fast-moving 90 minutes that will leave you a bit limp, proud of how tough we humans can be…and embarrassingly relieved it was her, not you. Wishing you the best, Zoë Kim—you have some good living to catch up on.
WHEN: March 25-April 12, 2026
WHERE: Amphibian Stage, 120 South Main Street, Fort Worth
WEB: amphibianstage.com
