Review Roundup: THE CAKE at La Jolla Playhouse

La Jolla Playhouse presents THE CAKE, which opened February 6th and runs through March 4th. THE CAKE follows conservative baker Della, whose traditionalist values are put to the test when she is asked to bake the wedding cake for a friend's daughter - who is marrying another woman.

THE CAKE is written by Bekah Brunstetter, directed by Casey Stangl, and features the talents of Aubrey Dollar, Wayne Duvall, Miriam Hyman, Jeffrey Howard Ingman, and Faith Prince.

Let's see what the critics had to say!

Welton Jones, San Diego Story: As Della, Faith Prince is a determined sunbeam smart enough to recognize reality and understand accommodation without turning cynical. Denied a child with the husband she's still in love with (and the doctors have assigned blame), she has soldiered on, her fantasies submerged in cake-dough, until she's whapped in the face with the wider world out there. Hail to Prince for touching every station of the cliché without overlooking the subtle flourish of emphasis. Wayne Duvall's husband is even more off the shelf, a stolid plumber who enacts manly southern rituals as a duty and chooses to play it safe anytime emotion is threatened.

Times of San Diego: Brunstetter (also a writer/producer for the hit TV series, "This is Us") is smart and clever, and can be funny, though the (oh so male) fart humor really has no place here. The point about Della's strict rule-following is hammered home relentlessly. We get the connection between her recipes and her religious life. Trust the audience. The La Jolla Playhouse production is beautiful. The set (David F. Weiner) is a delightfully detailed bakery, with some of the scrumptious-looking cakes in the display case lit from within, and above it all, a high shelf lined with decorative plates.

James Hebert, The San Diego Union-Tribune: All this unfolds on a set (by David F. Weiner) that looks good enough to eat - the cozy bakery portion of it, anyway, which comes complete with a case full of beautiful prop cakes. Elizabeth Harper lights the place with what seems the blaze of a hundred heat lamps, but her designs elsewhere flatter the set, and Denitsa Bliznakova's costumes and Paul James Prendergast's sound and music (including a fetching slide-guitar blues intro) are likewise welcome ingredients. No play, needless to say, can completely encapsulate a debate as thorny as the one at the center of "The Cake."

Photo Courtesy of La Jolla Playhouse.

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