The everyday chaos, sprinting, and screaming within a huge, busy restaurant kitchen is the setting for The Kitchen, a play being performed in London, and simulcast live in cinemas around the world.
The Arnold Wesker drama, set in 1950’s London and originally performed in 1959, captures the feel of England collecting itself after the war, of a mishmash of Europeans arguing as they struggle to handle the dinner rush, and of the tenuous order that we try to wring from life’s regular insanity -- whether we’re prepping 60 orders of baked fish or just parsing our own everyday madness.
The titular kitchen services a gigantic restaurant that can actually seat 1,500. A cast of more than 30 characters “argue and flirt as they race to keep up,” according to a synopsis on the National Theatre Live web site. “Peter, a high-spirited young cook, seems to thrive on the pressure. In between preparing dishes, he manages to strike up an affair with married waitress Monique, the whole time dreaming of a better life. But in the all-consuming clamor of the kitchen, nothing is far from the brink of collapse.”
The darkly humorous drama is supposedly fast-moving, with much waving of knives, and brief views of the “soup, fish, cutlets, omelettes and fruit flans” that the hungry Brits in the unseen dining rooms are eagerly awaiting.
St. Louisans can view The Kitchen at two simulcasts at the Tivoli Theatre.
The Kitchen
11. a.m.
Oct 29 and Nov 5
Tivoli Theatre
6350 Delmar
314-995-6270
Photograph by Tristram Kenton: A scene from The Kitchen by Arnold Wesker at the Olivier theatre in London.
