Waitress Serves a Welcome Respite
Full of sweetness, energy, and warmth, The 5th Avenue Theatre’s Waitress is the best musical I’ve seen in a while. It runs through Sunday (3/30) in Downtown Seattle.
This production tours to Houston’s Theatre Under the Stars, April 16-27. Info and tickets here.
Opening up
Letting the day in
Over a cup
‘Hello, how ya been?’
I’d almost forgotten what it’s like to see a damn good musical. Leave it to a pie shop (no, not that pie shop) to remind me.
With its folksy setup, The 5th Avenue Theatre’s Waitress is full of a comforting sweetness, energy, and warmth — a slice and a cuppa, just what you ordered. Set in Joe’s Pie Diner, Waitress orbits around sisterhood with an unlikely trio: suffer-no-fools Becky (Porscha Shaw), nasal-and-nerdy Dawn (Tori Gresham), and sturdy-but-stifled Jenna (Kerstin Anderson), who’s the mastermind behind the pies that keep Joe’s a destination.
Jenna has a lot on her mind. A hyper-controlling man at home. A check that never seems to stretch to dreams beyond the next payday. And a little plastic pee-on-a-stick that might determine her future. (Focus on the negative. C’monnn negative.)
While many dread work, Jenna finds escape there: in the sisterhood of her coworkers, with her persnickety (but predictable) regulars, and through the pie-making outlet that’s both her duty and her art. But things are about to change, for better or worse.
Pie of the day: Deep-shit blueberry bacon.
*
Premiering on Broadway nine years ago, Waitress probably would have gotten a lot more buzz if not for the misfortune of getting served up the same season as a certain other single-named offering (a hit called Hamilton). The book by Jessie Nelson (based on the mid-2000s film by Adrienne Shelly) has recognizable dramas, strong female characters to root for, and the down-home feel of a J. Ryan Stradal novel. It’s got the attitude and sense of place I always wished The Spitfire Grill would deliver, not to mention way better music. With humor and sunshine, Sara Bareilles’ catchy, impassioned pop-rock tracks create a real arc in some well-placed refrains. And they showcase the power of — and occasionally provide some sympathies for — each of the principals: from a borderline rapturous/panicked “When He Sees Me” for the nerd, to a wistful “You Will Still Be Mine” for the bully, to a sweetly nostalgic “Take It From an Old Man” for the old crank.
That’s a boon for this production, because The 5th’s staging brings a whole knockout cast. As centerpiece Jenna, Anderson is a treat throughout, with a voice that only gets richer further into the show. Shaw’s magnetism is familiar to anyone who’s seen her before, particularly in The 5th’s exceptional Beauty and the Beast. But the real breakout might be Gresham. Lately known more for her fierce acrobatics and cabaret at the Can Can, here she’s virtually unrecognizable giving awkward nasally nerd-meets-Kimmy Gibbler vibes as the high-strung, frizzy-haired Dawn. And Kennedy Kanagawa had the audience rolling with physical comedy, hamming it up as Dawn’s markedly awkward match, Ogie.
Opening weekend gave an unexpected treat with casting, putting in Yusef Seevers for (the reliably good) Brandon O’Neill as restaurant boss Cal, whose no-nonsense threats are laughably ineffectual against the strong personalities of his staff. Seevers’ sparring with Shaw made for particularly good viewing. Allen Fitzpatrick’s Joe, the diner’s namesake, is the perfect old crank with a soft spot. Dane Stokinger’s Earl is skin-crawlingly villainous with just the right dose of tender. They’re joined by a host of other local stage favorites (Nik Hagen, Adam Standley, and dance captain Alyza DelPan-Monley among them).
Punctuated by cheery choreography from director Lisa Shriver, the staging is a visual feast, too, with candy-coated color bursts throughout (set design by Julia Hayes Welch; lighting by Robert J. Aguilar; costumes by Danielle Nieves); and, while keeping the diner the rightful focus, Welch’s set takes us nimbly through secondary locations without missing a beat.
The show’s many highlights give it plenty of room to get around some not-so-great aspects of the script. Men-behaving-badly is surely among the show’s top three ingredients; and though some are dealt with well enough (Stokinger’s villainous Earl got lots of boo-hisses, but even that ending is far too neat and quiet), others are treated merely as facts of life (the diner’s namesake/owner rips into the staff from the table, while the day-to-day manager digs into them a different way), or even to be cheered for (Jenna’s paramour is wildly unethical, no matter how joyous the escape; and Dawn’s love interest arrives with a whole lot of assertive-stalker vibes before she suddenly falls for him). And the takeaway — forget your dreams! — feels too much like a ’50s prescription.
Despite it all, a lot does turn out right for everyone. As long as you let the songs carry you away and lean into the rom-com, this top-notch show metes out its just des(s)erts.
Waitress runs through 3/30 at The 5th Avenue Theatre in Downtown Seattle. Tickets here. Accessibility notes: basement restrooms are gender-neutral and multi-stall; all other restrooms are gendered and multi-stall. Theatre and some common areas are wheelchair accessible; see accessibility info here.
Run time: 2 hours 30 minutes, with intermission.
Chase D. Anderson is Editor & Producer of NWTheatre.org.