“Slow Food” is a 90-minute three-character play about a tourist couple held as culinary hostages by a passive-aggressive waiter in a Greek restaurant in Palm Springs, California.
Actually, “Slow Food” is really two plays in one. One centers on the couple and their comic efforts to have their server take an order and deliver a meal. It’s often very funny and clever, but essentially, it’s a frail one-joke effort that, much like a Saturday Night Live skit, forces the humor beyond the worth of the joke.
The other play is a more tender work that examines the relationship of the couple. When the waiter leaves them, their conversation, which can also be humorous, reveals they truly love each other, but after 23 years of marriage they are a bit bored in the relationship.
Playwright Wendy MacLeod has hit on two almost universal experiences that everyone will appreciate. We’ve all had that waiter whose sense of superiority has ruined a meal. And too, anyone in a long-term relationship understands how individuals can take each other for granted.
Each segment is lacking, but the performances are so good, it’s not that you don’t notice the problems, more likely you don’t care if the play isn’t perfect. Actually 60 minutes of the 90-minute length is excellent. You laugh at the dilemma of the couple and their schemes to get food from the arrogant waiter, and you like the couple as people. Indeed, the good is very good and the not so good is still pleasant.
MacLeod exaggerates the situation to its fullest. The reason the couple, Irene and Peter, are at the restaurant is that it’s the only one still open on a Sunday night. They are weary having flown from New York earlier and are having a very bad day. They’ve checked into their ill-prepared room at an expensive hotel to find several deficiencies, including a hot tub that doesn’t work. Their rental car wasn’t ready and they ended up with a giant van.
Clearly the couple are looking for a respite as much as nourishment. Instead they have the dining experience from hell. The waiter Stephen tries to control every aspect of their meal. Stephen won’t even let Peter order his favorite Sam Adams, insisting he try a local craft beer.
And so it goes throughout the meal. Depending on your point of view, and perhaps a personal prior experience, this could sound either funny or very painful.
Actually, thanks to actors Johanna Day as the wife and David Beach as the husband the work is not only humorous, but their performances add some heart to the situation. It’s hard not to laugh as they conspire to steal a bread basket from another table while Stephen is out of the dining room. Eventually, they get desperate enough that Irene asks Peter to flirt with the openly gay Stephen hoping it will get them an entrée.
They are terrific in helping you understand their belief that they have no choice but to humor the tyrant Stephen. Beach is delightfully frustrated at himself for not being assertive enough. Then he’s equally as frustrated when he angrily confronts the waiter. His lose-lose situation is always controlled so as not to make him look too passive,
Day is the soul of the play as the wife who plays the straight person to both her husband and to Stephen. She has as many zingers as does Stephen or Peter, but she seems the rationalist and somehow that makes her assessment of the men and the situation funny in a wiser way.
The best aspect of their performance is the balance they find in dealing with the food situation and reconciling minor hurts in their relationships. Because we care about them as people, an unbelievable situation becomes acceptable.
On the other hand, for Tyrone Mitchell Henderson, who plays the waiter, balance is not an issue. The character of Stephen is written to be overbearing and Henderson obliges. The key to Henderson’s sparkling performance is Stephen is never hateful. He’s annoying as hell, but never a negative presence. This quality makes his actions funny to watch rather than painful to experience.
It’s directed by Martha Banta, who finds the perfect rhythm for the show. She guides the actors to nurse every laugh without losing the humanity of the characters. If only she could legally cut a half hour from the material it would be a tasty opening for the company, instead of only a satisfactory night of theater.
“Slow Food” continues at the Wood Theatre in Glens Falls through July 31, For information, show schedules and to purchase tickets go to atfestival.org or call 518-480-4878
Bob Goepfert is theater reviewer for the Troy Record.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.
