how sweet it is | waitress
Just like coffee brings out the flavor of chocolate, sometimes it’s the bitterness in life that reminds us how sweet it can be. Waitress does a beautiful job of blending the flavors together as surely as Jenna creates her fanciful pies.
The staging of the show is almost balletic, the smooth movements of dancers and sliding racks providing a graceful counterpoint to the decidedly ungraceful lives its characters are living. I was struck by how tactile the show is, filled with clouds of flour, pouring sugar, cracking eggs. It gives it a realness that grounds even the more surreal moments.
Cute and quirky as the show is, I do feel like some of the more over-the-top quirk is at odds with the seriousness of the other content. Most notably, it feels pretty tone deaf that a song about emphatically ignoring a woman’s refusal is supposed to be funny and emblematic of what is presented as a “good” relationship in a show that is basically centered around domestic abuse.
But apart from a few off notes, Waitress is a colorful, inventive musical with a lot of heart. And there were definitely zero off notes coming from the stage on opening night: this is a seriously talented cast that help make each of these characters feel as warm and familiar as your own favorite coffee shop or diner.
