by: Contact me at warren.gerds@wearegreenbay.com. Watch for my on-air Critic at Large editions every Sunday during the 5:30-7:30 a.m. broadcast on WFRV-TV, Channel 5.
Posted: May 23, 2022 / 10:00 AM CDT
Updated: May 23, 2022 / 10:10 AM CDT
STURGEON BAY, Wis. (WFRV) – Showy acting.
That’s on the menu of “Slow Food,” a major tease of fine dining gone kaflooey.
The joke is… just about everything.
The fun is… watching kaflooeyness unfold through expert acting and directing.
The densely comedic/ironic/knowing play by Wendy MacLeod is running to June 5 as the first production of the first full season of the renovated Third Avenue PlayWorks. Changes, including those in artistic leadership, took place during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Slow Food” tells a tale of a couple weary from a day of travel who are walk-ins as the last patrons at an upper-crust Greek restaurant on a Sunday night. Along the way, a key comment from the husband is, “This isn’t service. It’s a hostage situation.”
The couple’s waiter, Stephen (don’t call him Steve), is a fussbudget with a limitless budget for being fussy.
Stephen plays his card of culinary expertise over and over as choices are made and either questioned or laced with options.
Sample scenario: The husband orders a Samuel Adams beer. To Stephen, that’s gauche. Wouldn’t the man like to try the local craft brew? No. But the wife would. Eventually, after much give and take, out come two sampler, sip-size glasses of the precious local craft brew. The husband tosses his back. Stephen takes that as a sign of alcoholism and says so to the wife, in earshot of the husband. And so a war brews between the customers and the waiter over all sorts of flashpoints in personalities.
Other flashpoints (short list): The waiter’s dead cat, run over by a car at age 17. The couple’s almost-adult sons, neither a world beater. An anniversary trip with reminders of naughty amid the nice. The dead-in-the-water service by a come see come saw waiter. For seriousness, a revelation of a biopsy result.
This is all an exercise in theatricality, which, Third Avenue PlayWorks being a professional house, is deliciously theatrical.
Jacob Janssen, the company’s new artistic director, flexes his directing muscle with a well-honed cast of theater artists of repute in the region.
Claire Morkin has been featured in high-level fare at Third Avenue PlayWorks over time. So have – also prominently – Alan Kopischke and Doug Mancheski, among other notable gigs. Doug Mancheski has been a major player at Door County’s Northern Sky Theater and is famous for his hundreds of performances in the legendary “Guys on Ice.” Among Alan Kopischke’s latest work is teaching/directing at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and putting up interesting productions.
“Slow Food” teems with grist for everybody’s mill, though much is off-the-wall from Wendy MacLeod’s smorgasbord imagination.
Here’s another sample scenario: The husband has been rough and rude with Stephen, and the wife suggests he compliment Stephen to smooth relations. After that happens, the wife suggests the husband flirt with Stephen, who is openly gay. Whoa! Really? Really. And that happens, and “Slow Food” takes flight into the wild blue yonder.
As the headline says, the show is top-flight nutty.
***
Running time: 85 minutes (no intermission)