Writer-performer Terry Park's 38th Parallels manages to be both entertaining and supremely frustrating, showcasing Park's writing talent alongside his lack of discipline. The svelte 70-minute monologue gives Park room to strut his literary stuff as he recounts his bizarre upbringing in Utah as the son of non-Mormon Korean immigrants and his voyages to and from Seoul, all intercut with recollections of his father's painful, troubled childhood. Though the structure is a mess, Park finds ways to talk about unexpectedly difficult things — a sense of homelessness, for one, surely a touchstone for third-culture kids around the world.
If Park and director Judith Sloan were more committed to the story and less to shtick, he would be in a better position to lecture the audience about stereotypes. Putting on a fake Southern accent to indicate the racism of his plastic-surgeon character does no one any favors, nor do the long segments in which Park cloyingly plays a child, forcing the audience to work hard to make sense of the twisty path he's set for himself.
Park opens the show as a Mormon missionary — wait, no, he's not, he's evangelizing himself, with The Book of Park in one hand and a badge that says "Elder Park" clipped to the pocket on his starched white shirt. Resplendent in black tie and free-hanging shirttail, he delivers his lines completely unimpeded by gravitas as he tells us that the first Park was born from an egg that peasants found outside a small town in Korea. "Then they ate it," he deadpans. "Just kidding." The story comes from Korean mythology, and every now and then Park whips out another great yarn that breaks in on his own life story. Though it's hard to track his progress (and hard to tell which character he's playing), the switchbacks do wonders to universalize his narrative.
If 38th Parallels doesn't always work, Park succeeds often enough to distinguish himself and his voice from the crowd.
Presented by Pan Asian Repertory as part of the Pan Asian Festival of New Works at the West End Theatre, 263 W. 86th St., NYC. May 20-26. Wed.-Sat., 7:30 p.m.; Sat. and Sun., 3 p.m. (212) 279-4200 or www.ticketcentral.com.