New York and points west should keep an eye out for this sparkling two-hander, a romantic musical comedy from England, because it’s going to get around and could build a phalanx of fans. Imported to Cambridge, Mass., by American Repertory Theater, Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York) will be catnip to devotees of the Hallmark Channel and, indeed, anyone whose idea of a good time is to settle in with a box of Kleenex to watch two attractive young people meet cute, build a bond, and grow together. Many of us older grumps are likely to have a good time as well.
The premise is as simple as the title is misleading. There’s to be an upscale Manhattan wedding tomorrow morning, between a graying millionaire and a much younger lady who’s something of a Karen. We know the latter fact because when we meet her sister, Robin (Christiani Pitts), at the airport, the bride demands that she run around to pick up bridal hose, a wedding guest from overseas, and a four-layer cake from a Brooklyn bakery, and will brook no argument.
The hose (spoiler alert) never gets bought, and the cake gets dropped after it’s removed from an Uber – hence the slightly misleading title — but the guest gets gotten right enough. It’s Dougal (Sam Tutty, who originated the role in the U.K.), a movie usher in a backwater town who’s never been to the States before but figures Gene Kelly will be found dancing around every corner. Even more excitingly, tomorrow’s groom is — wait for it — Dougal’s very own dad, who abandoned boy and mum in Dougal’s infancy. How great, that he gets to meet his favorite overseas country and his father for the first time, all at once! Dougal and future step-aunt make for the Big Apple, and hijinks ensue — often funny, just as often poignant.
Tutty is a natural as an impressionable but street-sharp tourist on the prowl, a shy kid who you nevertheless know will always be the life of the party at a pub or at the Plaza. A dead ringer for Ed Sheeran (watch for that casting on screen, I bet), Tutty has all the presence and musical chops of a Tommy Steele, minus self-aggrandizement and need to be loved. He’s a completely winning cherub.
For all that, the story, as concocted by Jim Barne and Kit Buchan and smoothly directed and choreographed by Tim Jackson, is Robin’s, and so the show is Pitts’s as well. Robin knows the truth behind the upcoming nuptials and Dougal’s place in the ceremony, none of which I’ll reveal but all of which brings up dark emotions from heartbreak to dread. As the first barista possibly in show business history who doesn’t aspire to some larger career goal, Robin carries much baggage, and Pitts pitches in with tenderness in her solos, and lightning-fast timing when it’s called for.
Speaking of baggage, set designer Soutra Gilmour has created two piles of airplane bags that resemble the NYC skyline if you squint, and that, as they rotate, provide a range of surfaces to climb, sit, stand, and sleep on in the course of the show’s eventful 24 hours. (Many of the bags open up to reveal surprises along the way.) The lighting by Jack Knowles keeps evoking locations that captivate and moods that throb, and the serviceable score (also by Barne and Buchan) keeps one humming.
I am loath to overpraise this little gem. I know sophisticates will find it thin, predictable, and often unconvincing in its details. (Did Dougal have to be made so movie-mad? Couldn’t a millionaire’s bride-to-be hire an assistant to procure a wedding cake long before the last minute?) I thought of The Fantasticks, which was dismissed as precious and twee at its opening and went on to break all-time box office records. The critics nay-sayed, but the people found it and took it to their heart. I think I’d rather lower expectations, and let those intrigued by the premise and the genre make the call. I smiled throughout; perhaps you will too.
Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York) opened at American Repertory Theater, Cambridge, MA on May 30, 2025 and runs through July 13. Tickets and information: AmericanRepertoryTh
