MPR’s Chris Roberts reports on play "Canned Goods" and interviews playwright Silas Jones.

Questions of identity are at the heart of the new play being staged at the Penumbra Theatre in St. Paul. "Canned Goods" is a surreal drama chronicling the life of an Asian American Grocery store owner in South Central Los Angeles, who watches his life crumble when he sells the store to his son. Tensions between Asian and Black Americans in the inner city are explored, but the production is more concerned with the question of what makes an American an “American.”