The Cake

C+

After successful productions in L.A. and the Berkshires, Bekah Brunstetter’s (“This Is Us”) comedy with serious overtones has landed in New York at Manhattan Theatre Club’s Stage I. Those expecting a serious look at the legal ramifications of denying a wedding cake to a same sex couple won’t find it here; there is no lawsuit involved. What we get instead is a sympathetic look at a Southern woman whose religious beliefs are out of sync with her loving personality. The bake shop owner, Della, superbly played by Debra Jo Rupp (Becoming Dr. Ruth), is a woman of a certain age in a childless stale marriage who hopes to validate her life by appearing in a televised national bake-off. In baking as in life, Della seeks success by closely adhering to the rules. When Jen (Genevieve Angelson; Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike), the daughter of her late best friend, returns from Brooklyn to plan a hometown wedding, Della is thrilled until she learns that Jen’s intended is a woman, Macy (Marinda Anderson; The Treasurer, Miss You Like Hell) , a journalist with inflexible views on just about any subject. The fact that Macy is African-American doesn’t seem to be a problem. When Della claims to be too busy to bake their wedding cake, Jen is crushed. While Jen may have escaped to Brooklyn, she has not been able to shake deeply ingrained feelings of shame about being a lesbian. In a subplot, Della tries unsuccessfully to rekindle the spark in her marriage with the help of lots of butter cream. Later, when her husband Tim (Dan Daily; Days To Come) finally sees the light, he tries to reciprocate with a heap of mashed potatoes. You will either find these scenes hilarious or gross. The play is interspersed with several droll imaginary interchanges between Della and George (Daily again), the unseen host of the TV series. Will Della be able to overcome her religious strictures to bake the cake? The ending seemed a bit facile. The production is greatly enhanced by an amazing set by John Lee Beatty (Doubt, Proof, Good People) with three revolving sections. The shelves of brightly colored cakes certainly made my mouth water. Tom Broecker’s (Our Mother’s Brief Affair) costumes and Tommy Kurzman’s wigs also make a substantial contribution. Lynne Meadow’s (Linda, Of Good Stock) direction is seamless. The play is entertaining but doesn’t really have much depth. Running time: 90 minutes, no intermission.

Days To Come

C-

In explaining the failure of her second play, which closed after barely a week on Broadway in 1936, Lillian Hellman commented: “I wanted to say too much.” That pretty much sums up the play’s shortcomings, as revealed in a revival by Mint Theater Company on Theater Row. We meet Andrew Rodman (Larry Bull; The Coast of Utopia), the well-meaning but ineffectual owner of a brush factory in a a small Ohio town, his restless unfulfilled wife Julie (Janie Brookshire; The Moundbuilders), his embittered spinster sister Cora (Mary Bacon; The Roads to Home), the domineering family attorney Henry Ellicott (Ted Deasy), the outspoken longtime family cook Hannah (Kim Martin-Cotten; Time and the Conways) and the maid Lucy (Betsy Hogg). When the factory workers go on strike, the union sends in organizer Leo Whalen (Roderick Hill) to advise their leader, Andrew’s friend since childhood Thomas Firth (the barely audible Chris Henry Coffey). Henry persuades the naive Andrew to bring in strikebreakers led by Sam Wilkie (Dan Daily; The Dining Room) and his henchmen Mossie Dowel (Geoffrey Allen Murphy; The Nance) and Joe Easter (Evan Zes; Incident at Vichy). With eleven characters competing for our attention, there is little opportunity for any of them to strike more than one note. There is more speechifying than conversation. It is difficult to ascertain where the focus of the play lies. The significance of the title escapes me. The level of the acting is not up to the Mint’s usual standard. The attractive period set by Harry Feiner (The Traveling Lady) includes a stool that creaks so loudly that it competes with the actor atop it. The costumes by Andrea Varga (The Suitcase under the Bed) include a dress for Julie with an aggressively busy pattern that it is an assault on the eyes. J.R. Sullivan’s direction does not pull things together. It was far from a successful evening, but it was interesting to see the state of Hellman’s craft just before she wrote her great family drama The Little Foxes. Running time: two hours ten minutes, including intermission.