Waitress

Waitress

Jessie Nelson (Book): Sara Bareilles (Music & Lyrics)

San Francisco Playhouse

Every day she bakes twenty-seven pies, including one each day that she creates as a new recipe on the spot – pies with names like Big Guy Strawberry, Polka Dot Peach, Lost Shepard’s, and Deep (Shit) Blueberry.  At Joe’s Pie Diner where everyone wants once again to know “What’s Inside,” Jenna is rolling out another crust and filling it with plenty of sugar, singing somewhere between dreamingly and wistfully, “My whole life is in here, in this kitchen baking; what a mess I’m making.”

So opens Waitress, the Jessie Nelson (book) and Sara Bareilles (music and lyrics) delicious musical that even in its eighth and final week at San Francisco Playhouse is playing to completely sold-out audiences (with disappointed patrons turned away when I attended last night).  What a great tribute not only to the musical’s power but especially to an over-the-top-talented cast and to Susi Damilano’s scrumptious, jammed-packed-with-brilliance-boldness-humor stage direction.

The main ingredients baked into this musical based on the 2007 movie by the same name include our apron-wearing heroine, Jenna, who sings with buttery beauty; her crusty co-worker, Becky, with tart remarks aplenty; her other waitress pal, cream-puff sweet Dawn stirred with much anxiety; and Cal, the salty, over-sized cook whose bitter bite is more show than real as so ably portrayed by Dorian Lockett.

Whipping in an appetizing mixture of music flavored with hints of pop, country, and ballad (all played by an outstanding, onstage band of six conducted by Dave Dobrusky), Waitress is a dished-up dessert that is filled to the brim with domestic dilemmas, surprise romances, heart-warming friendships, and just enough fun and funny to make this pie a not-to-be-missed offering.  What a shame this meal is about to end this weekend.  It is a feast that deserves to last much longer, as witnessed again by all remaining shows completely sold out.

As she bakes and sings (“What Baking Can Do”), Ruby Day’s Jenna remembers with soft, lyrical notes a mother who taught her all she knows about baking and dreams with sustained notes of increasing hope of a life where she does not continue to live in an abusive relationship, as did her mom.  With memories of her father (Milo Boland) beating her mother (Ash Malloy) still cropping up in her moments of baking alone, she must also deal with a brute of a husband, Earl (a swaggering, repulsive, ego-centered Ben Euphrat), who daily takes her tips, drills her why there are not more, and then downs his beer amidst growled threats and glaring but lust-filled eyes.

After Jenna and her waitress sisters discover in the café’s bathroom that she is pregnant – the self-test result sung in “The Negative” that leads to Jenna’s final reaction of “Shit” – Jenna finds herself in a doctor’s office to meet the handsome, boyish, and hilariously awkward, Dr. Pomatter (Zeke Edmonds).  When she presents the “I-never-eat-sugar” doctor with a tempting Marshmallow Mermaid pie (which he soon digs into with his stethoscope as a spoon), the two employ enough mixed metaphors in their duet “It Only Takes a Taste” for us soon to understand that more than pie is the subject of their sung, first-time tête-á-tête:

“It only takes a taste when you know it’s good.

Sometimes one bite is more than enough

To know you want more of the thing you just got a taste of.”

As her pregnancy blossoms, so does the attraction between doctor and patient – both married by the way.  The two try to convince themselves in “Bad Idea” that their relationship is just that, but their cat-and-mouse dance around the examination table ends up on top with more than just the patient.  More denying and more efforts to keep their doctor/patient distance runs counter to the gorgeously sung duet, “You Matter to Me,” where his tenor easily lifts to expressive, soft falsetto notes streaming straight from the heart that combine so naturally with her underlying, beautifully intoned notes expressing authentic feelings awakening within a woman who has not felt love for a long time.

Watching their cat-and-mouse game is Nurse Norma (Lucca Troutman) who draws audience laughs every time she suddenly enters to interrupt, clearly disapproving with huffs, puffs, and snide one-liners but still more than willing to enjoy Jenna’s calling-card pies.

Other romances are also baking in the oven; and each is just as unlikely.  Chief among these is between Dawn (played with staccato-paced frenzy by Sharon Shao and her online, blind date Ogie, who shows up at the café to steal the show and eventually Dawn’s reluctant heart.  As the oddball Ogie, Michael Parrott easily receives the night’s biggest laugh-filled applause as he jumps, twists, twirls, clogs, and sings with piercing nasal notes his way into Dawn’s life in “Never Ever Getting Rid of Me.”  Their love becomes sealed when he reveals he has played Paul Revere in American Revolution reenactments, something the Betsy Ross in her can relate.  When they later sing a hilariously staged “I Love You Like a Table,” the quirky sounding voices of both blend perfectly for a union sure to come soon.  Together, Sharon Shao and Michael Parrott are worth the price of the ticket and would be a worthy coupling for some future, comedic show.

Advice to Jenna on how she needs to leave Earl before her baby arrives comes from varied sources.  The aged curmudgeon and owner of the diner, Joe, is played with an outer, hard crust by veteran-and-much-loved SFPlayhouse actor, Louis Parnell, but that outer gruffness increasingly shows signs of a soft interior and some wise words for his favorite waitress, Jenna.

Another Bay Area favorite, Tanika Baptiste, brings her full-of-dignity-and-determination vocals commandingly to bear in “I Didn’t Plan It” for a jarring wake-up call that Becky gives Jenna: “Look around you, ain’t no saints her, baby; we’re all just looking for a little less crazy.”  Like old Joe, her outside brusqueness combined with oft-bawdy remarks hide a heart bigger than sky-high meringue.

We see that heart in moments like the mesmerizing trio she sings with Jenna and Dawn, “A Soft Place to Land,” where their individually sung lines flow in repeated rounds into beautifully blended, luxuriously soothing harmonies.

Jacquelyn Scott has outdone herself once again as a scenic designer, creating a small-town diner setting whose parts and pieces often swirl in a dance of their own to make way for new and different scenes.  That choreography of inanimate objects blends so well with the beautifully coordinated movements of restaurant patrons, waitresses, and entire cast as designed by Nicole Helfer – choreography that both accents the humor and the emotional swings of the musical.

From the uniforms of the diner’s staff, the variety of customers’ personality defining wear to the laugh-out-loud apparel of Ogie, Kathleen Qiu has scored a winner in her costume designs.  Vincent Chau’s myriads of properties that add authenticity and hilarity to the diner’s scene, Michael Palumbo’s neon-sign and scene-setting lighting, and James Ard’s well-balanced and blended sound design together complete a creative team superb for this San Francisco Playhouse hit.

From set to sound to staging, San Francisco Playhouse’s Waitress has a cast that sells itself in song and portrayals and a story that is a good mix of funny (even silly), romantic, hard-hitting, and uplifting.

Rating: 5 E

Waitress continues through January 18, 2025, in production by San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post Street, San Francisco.  Tickets for all remaining performances are now sold out.  For possible wait list, call the box office at 415-677-9596.

Photo Credits: Jessica Palopoli