Raging Skillet is the sort of show that transports one to a very small theater in, say Greenwich Village. It’s not mainstream theatre, nor does it want to be. But it is very, very funny.
Rossi – a one-word name – is a chef who clawed her way up through the catering world to make a name for herself. She left home as a rebellious teenager, got shipped off to a Hasidic Jewish group in Brooklyn, and struck out on her own after that. Restaurants, particularly kitchens, are known to attract rebels. And often they’re the place where those rebels begin to learn self-discipline. The play is taken from her memoir/cookbook of the same name, and Rossi would, I’m sure, be the first to tell you she still rebels, and she’s right. She’s a strong feminist, and her chef-ery is very open-minded, too. No food snob, she, except when it comes to blandness.
But the conflict we’re seeing is not really based in food. Rossi’s turbulent relationship with her mother is at the heart of this play. Mom, who stopped cooking as soon as she got a microwave, has been dead these twenty-plus years as the play begins, but reappears to attend the book release party where the play is set. The conflicts go way, way beyond Rossi’s being lesbian, but provide the fuel for the fire of funniness.
Sarajane Alverson is the rockin’ Rossi, bouncing around the stage. Her sidekick and DJ is Erin Renee Ross, doing some rocking of her own and sliding down poles, and Mom is Kathleen Sitzer, immediately returning from her retirement as NJT’s artistic director to wear a purple knit cap and stop magnificently off the set. Everyone is clearly having a good time in the script that Jacques Lamarre adapted from Rossi’s book.
There’s a great deal of Yiddish in the play from Mom, who’s pretty much the classic picture of The Jewish Mother. In the midst of the laughter, probably around the discussion about not wasting food, I began to wonder where the stereotype began. Anyone whose parents went through the Depression can identify with that particular scenario, as well as many others.
But this is definitively not a serious play, as shown by the small bites of Rossi creations handed out to the audience at intervals and the interaction with the audience, making it feel more like one of those live cooking shows. (There’s a reason for the napkins in the program.) Dunsai Dai’s set is just right for the action, set off by Michael Sullivan’s lights, sound and projection design.
Lee Anne Matthews directed this work of horseradish fluff and did a fine job pulling it together. Edward Coffield, a guy with a notable sense of humor along with his other gifts, has taken over the reins as artistic director of the company, and it’ll be fun to see what he brings us in the coming years.
Not, of course, for delicate ears. But you figured that out already, right?
Raging Skillet
through October 21
The New Jewish Theatre
The Wool Family Studio
Jewish Community Center Staenberg Family Complex
2 Millstone Campus Drive, Creve Coeur