An Inside Look at Julia Child’s Life Before Cooking, Paris, and Fame.
It is wild how infinite creativity is. For me, it usually sends me down these rabbit holes, making me want to know more, as I mentioned in my last review. For this world premiere at the Playhouse, The Recipe by Claudia Shear is based on Dearie, a book by journalist and author Bob Spitz, who has made a career of writing biographies of personalities such as former president Ronald Reagan, Led Zeppelin, and The Beatles.
The play shows a young Julia (Christina Kirk) living in Pasadena, California, with a sick mother and a stubborn father (Michael Park). After college, Julia did not want to settle down and sought more from life. Always butting heads with her conservative father, and wanting to learn different things not considered that ladylike for the time, she began as a file clerk and was promoted to Chief of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) Registry, an endeavor that took her to live in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) for a year during WWII, place where she meets her future husband Paul Child (Norbert Leo Butz).
The duration of this piece is about three hours, including an intermission, but you do not notice it. The beginning is very “made-for-TV”, alluding to Child’s fame from her cooking shows. Rachel Hauck’s set design begins minimally, using moving platforms to represent walls and doors. Ensemble members are constantly moving, changing the stage look. Ben Stanton’s lighting is mostly an amber-copper tone, I believe, also nodding to Julia’s famous pans against a baby blue backdrop. Seeing this made me remember that the Smithsonian in Washington has Julia’s kitchen! One of the highlights of my trip to D.C. There are a couple of abrupt transitions to black that are perfect for the rhythm the play is taking, accompanied by André Pluess’s music that rounded out each moment with a wonderful feel.
Lisa Peterson’s direction and David Neumann’s choreography embraced the story to deliver a creative, upbeat take on various nuggets about Child that people might not be familiar with, like how she struggled with her height, finding shoes, her studies at the Sorbonne, and the sabotage from the school due to patriarchal norms and even racism.
Linda Cho’s costumes illustrate the 40s, 50s, and 60s, featuring high-waisted pants, Parisian hats and scarves, and the intense heat in Ceylon, with flowy dresses and lightweight fabrics.
Another cool aspect Claudia Shear included in The Recipe is Julia’s first heartbreak in college with Tom (Ariel Shafir), which is contrasted with her relationship with her husband, who supported her cooking journey and vision for American women, French cuisine, and American kitchens. Her relationship with Simca (Jill Abramovitz) and Louise (Saisha Talwar) would lead to her first cookbook.
Norbert Leo Butz and Christina Kirk have charming, cute, and realistic scenes. It would seem that Butz even ad-libbed a little as Kirk laughed mid-scene, which still made it fun. I loved their duo and their chemistry. Christina made Julia’s role her own rather than mimicking the icon.
Abramovitz and Talwar are great with the French accents, tones, and mannerisms. Courtesy of Andrea Caban’s coaching. Norbert and Christina played only one role, while the rest of the cast played multiple roles. Rami Margron, as the tough-to-crack Madame Brassard and the counselor at La Sorbonne, truly projected that authority and made for compelling characters to watch.
Between the writing, the adaptation, and Edward Sobel’s dramaturgy, The Recipe had a solid foundation on which to layer the creative elements that brought the story to life.
This play is great for both avid fans of Child’s and people who are not that familiar with her journey.
Currently playing and now extended until March 29.
The Stage Manager for this production is Dean Remington, with Assistant Stage Manager Alexa Burn.
Ensemble members include: Germainne Lebron, Torkan Omari, and Kenneth Ray.
