Signature’s Cake Off and Ford’s The Guard (reviews)
Signature's "Cake Off" doesn't rise to the challenge, while Ford's "The Guard" is just a challenge
The third time promises to be the charm for Rita Gaw, a contestant in the fictional Millberry Cake Off, which this year will award an unprecedented $1 million to the top baker.
You enter new musical Cake Off (
) at Signature Theatre already rooting for Rita — largely because she’s being played by Sherri Edelen. Any regular patron of Signature Theatre knows how effectively this Helen Hayes Award winner can win over audiences with her powerhouse vocals and her ability to portray larger-than-life characters as if they were little more than sweet, unsung mothers-next-door — from Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd to Mama Rose in Gypsy.
In fact, your support for Rita never wavers over the course of the intermission-less 95-minute musical, which is as much a compliment to Edelen as it is criticism to playwright Sheri Wilner. Based on an earlier play of Wilner’s, she transformed it into a musical with assistance from Julia Jordan (Murder Ballad) on the book and lyrics and Adam Gwon (Ordinary Days) on music and lyrics.
Rita’s main rival is Paul Hubbard (Todd Buonopane). There are few redeeming or likable things about Hubbard, who is as bumbling in his personal life as he is in the kitchen. There are several tedious scenes in which the single father looks into the audience and begs his unseen adolescent son not to leave him the way the boy’s mother did. Among other problems, this detracts from what the show is supposed to be about: baking cakes and showing skill in the kitchen.
It’s certainly an odd premise for a musical. One early number has Rita and Paul taking turns singing the ingredients lists as they mix together their respective cakes, for instance. It’s all set to director Joe Calarco’s light, complementary choreography, and performed on Jason Sherwood’s turntable set — which adds some dramatic excitement. Fortunately, the show eventually rises to become more than the sum of its melodically presented ingredients.
Cake Off offers some trenchant ideas about our culture’s rather casual, everyday misogyny and subtle gender prejudice. It’s clear to everyone that Rita is the better baker, but her confidence and determination threatens to be her undoing — in a way that such traits never would be for a man. If Rita’s male rival had been portrayed as equally confident and determined, with the only real difference being less skill, I can’t help but think Cake Off would have been more provocative and revealing about gender norms and assumptions.
As it is, Cake Off might stir up some girl-power passion, especially with the penultimate number “You Can’t Have This.” And you might be amused by Jamie Smithson’s work in barely changing his look or attire to play the show’s host as well as a couple of minor roles — both male and female. But the final product isn’t satisfying or sweet enough — especially as the last number finds Rita resorting somewhat to gender stereotypes, sublimating her dreams and desires into those of her unseen daughter. It leaves a rather unpleasant taste.
YOU ALSO MIGHT GO INTO The Guard with a certain expectation based on at least one of its actors. And just as with Edelen in Cake Off — both shows are their respective theaters’ contributions to the region-wide Women’s Voices Theater Festival — you leave Ford’s Theatre once again impressed by the work of actor Craig Wallace, who has proven himself before to be an acting powerhouse (most recently in Ford’s Driving Miss Daisy). Wallace is the ace up The Guard‘s sleeve, since he doesn’t appear until the play’s final 30 minutes.
By that point, you may have already lost interest in The Guard ( ), Jessica Dickey’s dry, drab and pretentious play overloaded with themes — everything from Rembrandt and Homer and the mysteries of art and artists, to modern love and ways of grieving. A cast of five actors portray different characters across four vastly different scenes, all while being whisked around the world and into the past on James Kronzer’s turntable set. Mitchell Hebert takes on the titular role as an aging gay man who, until the final scene, shows more love and compassion for the art on the museum wall than he does for his own dying partner. After a short soliloquy as Homer, Wallace becomes that dying partner in the play’s final, touching scene that leaves you wanting more.
Sharon Ott directs the show, centered around one of the lesser-known paintings featuring Homer by the Dutch master Rembrandt, whose general personality and artistic intentions are still the subject of debate. (We know even less of Homer.) Dickey attempts to bring these artists to life, imagining what they might have been like and may have been trying to do. Of course, the difference between what something might have been and what it actually is can often be a disappointment.
That’s certainly true here. What might have been a tender, intimate drama of an aging gay couple’s relationship — with interesting diversions to talk about art — instead is a drama that heads off to the museum only to lose its way down a cultural rabbit hole.
The Guard runs to Oct. 18 at Ford’s Theatre, 511 10th St. NW. Tickets are $20 to $64. Call 800-982-2787 or visit fordstheatre.org.
Cake Off runs to Nov. 22 at Signature Theatre, 4200 Campbell Ave., Arlington. Tickets are $40 to $101. Call 703-820-9771 or visit signature-theatre.org.
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