Having discovered the Great British Bake-Off when I
tuned in by mistake looking for Downton Abbey, I now know that baking competitions
can be surprisingly fascinating. Zeitgeist Stage takes the art of baking
semi-seriously with Colleen Curran’s CAKEWALK (playing through March 19th).
Director David Miller has a lively cast who excel at farce. In fact, there’s a spectacularly
delicious “banana peel” moment which opens Act II—but don’t dawdle at intermission
or you’ll miss it.
Victoria George is simply delightful as the sweet nun tempted
by forbidden fruit. She has entered the bake off so she can use the prize money
to send an elderly nun to Lourdes.
Aina Adler gives a feisty, charismatic performance as her best friend and
confidante but it’s Matt Fagerberg who takes the cake as the agile absent
minded archeologist. (His character’s name alone makes him heaven sent).
Problem is, the play wanders into melodrama which slows the
cooking time way down. The playwright mixes up conflict for two characters who
are oil and water: Then she wants us to believe they can congeal despite the
laws of physics. She attempts this twice but once you introduce racism, the
play ceases to be funny. A farce about cut throat bakers has to have batter
light enough to rise and stay airborne. They say some cooks purposely leave out
an ingredient when they share a recipe. I’m afraid too many ingredients went
into this overly layered cake.