review: Home's kitchen @ NOCCA

Home on the (kitchen) range: the cast of Home's Kitchen

Home's Kitchen at NOCCA
review by Paul Oswell

There are two kitchen-and-food-based plays running in New Orleans with a focus on the LGBTQ+ community right now. The Cake is a colorful comedic romp, while new play Home’s Kitchen (written and directed by Maeve Chapman - read our interview here), although it has amusing moments, skews more dramatically. 

Mari (played by Sam Drust) lives alone in her New York apartment, listless and unmoored in life. She writes obituaries for a living, obsessively watches a cooking show (the titular Home’s Kitchen) and hangs out with her queer best friend, Liam (Matthew Raetz). As Mari loses her job and spirals into depression, Liam announces that he wants to study in California, unsettling their dynamic. 

Meanwhile, we’re privy to behind-the-scenes drama in the TV show kitchen. Chef and star Richard (Stephen Ladow) is losing his producer Paul (Michael Vaughn-Kennedy), who is suddenly being particularly flirty and wants Richard to present an episode raising money for LGBTQ+ causes. Richard is newly divorced from his wife, estranged from his family, and seems to be still working out his sexuality. 

The two plots take place at either end of a runway-style stage, often at the same time, with Mari being able to mute the TV, Richard occasionally miming his way through until she turns it up again. This is one of the more daring aspects of the production, another being a kind of ‘split screen’ effect as conversations from each end of the stage intertwine. 

There’s also the high-wire artistic decision to have the characters eat spaghetti live on stage, a sometimes messy choice delivering a relatable serving of quotidian reality. The actors must be relieved they’re not breaking into a plate of lobsters, at least. 

Consumed with ennui, Mari delves into her past passion of cooking (she’s a graduate of the CIA - that’s the Culinary Institute of America) to reboot her career opportunities, while Richard wrestles his personal and professional lives with increasing anxiety. Slowly, the leads' worlds slowly edge towards each other in an unexpected way. 

There’s good use of visual effects to project text messages and Twitter updates, as well as voiceovers as characters take phone calls. Drust and Ladow carry the main storyline empathetically, while Raetz and Vaughn-Kennedy provide expressive, compelling support. 

The cast deftly navigate a logistically-challenging play, and Chapman’s direction employs clever blocking to imbue the two static scenes with some dynamism. Liam Corley’s lighting and multimedia effects, as well as Chris Rodriguez’s set design make the most of a visual economy, with impressively believable staging. 

Set against the backdrop of the legalization of gay marriage in the United States in 2015, and dealing with the legacy of the AIDS crisis, there’s a feelgood ending with a dash of bittersweet sentiment. Our lives’ menus are subject to shifting tastes, and with often unexpected changes, and in Home's Kitchen, it’s all about what you do with the new ingredients.  

Home's Kitchen runs at NOCCA through Sunday 9th June. Click here for show information and ticketing