Review: CLYDE'S, Donmar Warehouse

From the pulse pounding psychodrama of Boiling Point to the raw sensuousness of The Bear it’s easy to see why dramatists are drawn to kitchens. The heat is high. Emotions run higher. Knives cut fast. Words cut sharper.

In amongst a crowded genre Lynn Nottage’s 2021 Clyde’s, making its European premiere at the cosy Donmar Theatre, stands out by doing what theatre does best. Stirring the soul with heart wrenching intimacy. Set in a roadside American diner’s shabby kitchen populated by former convicts slicing sandwiches for a second chance at life, the winning recipe is one of sweet and sour, laughter and pain, all served with a healthy dose of humanity.

The ragtag crew of chefs - Ronkẹ Adékoluẹjo’s boisterous Letitia, Sebastian Orozco’s smooth-talking Rafael, and Patrick Gibson’s newbie Jason, whose face is stained in Neo-Nazi tattoos masking a violent past, riff and raff off each other, bickering and bantering like children. Their dynamic is cooked to perfection, each bringing their own flavour to Frankie Bradshaw’s shiny metal kitchen set, so realistic you could cut your finger on a blade just by looking at it.

The fatherly Montrellous anchors them. As the head chef he rhapsodically philosophises about food elevating the humblest tuna melt to a metaphysical level. “Remember that special dish your mother would make for you” he pleads with Clyde, the bullish owner who refuses to change the menu to accommodate their culinary creations. She too is a former inmate who has a darkness of her own, one that she masks with cruelty towards her chefs that not even a Proustian memory could penetrate.   

With his sleeves rolled up Giles Terea is samurai-like as Montrellous. His beard flecked with grey, he slices and dices through orders with meditative zen focus. The rookie chefs watch him wide eyed, as do the audience watch Terea. With even the smallest glance he wields stoic power that commands the cosy space stern but loving paternalistic warmth.

Terea is an actor who is at home captivating London’s largest theatre spaces. His credits boast critically acclaimed turns in Hamilton, and back-to-back productions at The National Theatre in this year’s Blues for an Alabama Sky (also helmed by Linton and staring Adékoluẹjo) and Othello. But this gorgeously understated performance could just be his most compelling. He thrives in a tighter space, and the audience are all the luckier for it. They can savour each microscopic flicker of love up close.

Darkness is never too far away. Snapshots of cold light punch down suddenly from above, as if the chefs’ pasts are punching them from within, the darkness clamouring to escape. Montrellous soothes their pain: “you are not bound by mistakes.”

There is something religious in that tangle of darkness, light and salvation. Linton slyly suggests some messianic motifs. Experimental sandwiches that the chefs prepare are bathed in angelic sheen for what seems to be a comic effect. But there is something deeper here, a celebration of food as that which can give us spiritual nourishment as well as physical. Whoever or wherever we are, nothing can unite us more than a good meal. Or a good play for that matter.

Read our interview with Patrick Gibson about the show here.

Clyde’s plays at the Donmar Theatre until 2 December

Photo Credit: Marc Brenner

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