We are greeted, filing into Manhattan Theatre Club’s Stage I, by a gleaming wedding cake, artfully lit on a high pedestal. Four tiers tall, pink icing festooned with white garlands, and standing what appears to be about four feet high. Too pretty to eat, you might say; and you might similarly describe Bekah Brunstetter’s admirable play—about wedding cake, called The Cake—too pretty to quite digest.
Ex-Southern belle Jen (Genevieve Angelson) returns to her native Winston-Salem from wicked Brooklyn to arrange her wedding, which for sentimental reasons must be in her hometown; and the cake must come from Della’s Cakes, the establishment run by Jen’s deceased mother’s closest friend, Della (Debra Jo Rupp). All well and good until Della gleans that the antagonistic “customer” sparring with her in the first scene—who virtuously proclaims she never eats cake because of “its addictive qualities,” and you immediately know how that protestation will turn out in the final scene—is Macy (Marinda Anderson), Jen’s betrothed. Della’s oven, and Della’s mind, snaps shut: No cake!
This plot sounds taken-from-life, specifically the 2016 case of a Colorado baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a male couple, which wound up in the Supreme Court. Brunstetter, a prolific playwright who has garnered considerable success as a producer-writer of This Is Us, clearly took note; she just as clearly decided to place her take on the cake not in Colorado but in her North Carolina hometown, with the soon-to-be-newlyweds changed from “man and man” to “wife and wife.”
[Read Jesse Oxfeld’s ★★★★ review here.]
All to the good, yes; and as the opening scene goes through its paces, you might think: Ah, the playwright is on to something true and important and what a wonderful character she has contrived for the play’s center. You might eagerly look forward to how she will weave it all into a hopefully provocative social statement grounded in truth. In the end, though, you might find yourself reasonably entertained but distinctly let down. Unlike the Colorado case, this one is played—the further we proceed—for laughs and a feel-good ending, which is a perfectly practical choice by the playwright but trivializes what hinted to be a provocative message.
The Cake has demonstrated popular appeal since it premiered at Los Angeles’ Echo Theater Company in 2017. Another production was staged last July at Barrington Stage in Pittsfield, after which the Echo staging was remounted in October at the Geffen. The Cake is now on display at Manhattan Theatre Club, with a third director and production team, and its third cast. Except for Rupp, who is known for scads of television credits (including That ’70s Show and, yes, This Is Us) and last plied our local boards in 2013 in Becoming Dr. Ruth. The role of Della was presumably written for Rupp, and she seems to have wisely glued herself to the enterprise. She is responsible in no small part for the success of the play, with her performance as the folksy, conflicted baker who is not quite a villain helping gloss over some textual weaknesses.
The play is produced with Manhattan Theatre Club’s typically high standards, under the direction of artistic director Lynne Meadow and with a suitably pink and over-the-top set—brimming with impossibly colorful layer cakes—by the ever-mirthful John Lee Beatty. Angelson—who made a strong impression as young Nina in Christopher Durang’s Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike—is convincing as the girl who moved far away from bigoted North Carolina but still feels emotional ties, with Anderson countering her as the understandably skeptical New Yorker. Also on hand is Dan Daily as Debra’s blue-collar husband Tim—a plumber, don’t you know—and the author gets unfortunately sidetracked with some highly nonerotic sexual material involving buttercream and mashed potatoes, which only further devalues the overall message.
It is not uncommon for plays to maneuver through serious and contemporary social matters laced with dollops of wild comedy. Numerous examples exist, two of which—Angels in America and Torch Song Trilogy—have recently visited Broadway. Here, the comedy doesn’t exactly diminish the potential power of the drama; but it doesn’t enhance it either, which makes The Cake interesting and entertaining enough. But the layers don’t quite rise as high as the recipe suggests.
The Cake opened March 5, 2019, at City Center Stage I and runs through March 31. Tickets and information: manhattantheatreclub.com
