Friday, January 31, 2025
We see a lot of shows and I usually love them. Tonight was a bit iffy. We went to Lyric Arts in Anoka to see A Taste of Things to Come. The first act was set in 1957 at a meeting of the Winnetka Wednesday Women’s cooking club. Four young friends gather weekly to cook and talk. It was a collection of stereotypes – mom of too many, wannabe starlet, ditz, and budding feminist. They said they were entering a Betty Crocker contest, but it made absolutely no sense since they decided to make simple things they already knew how to make, and something was supposed to be postmarked by 5pm. It didn’t really matter, because the point of the show was the talking, but it was distracting that they were just wandering around the kitchen nonsensically. There was a big fight that signalled the end of the cooking club and the first act.
The second act was ten years later. They were reconvening for the first time since ten years ago, lured with the hostess’ promise of a big surprise. Since they all originally lived within a few blocks of each other, it did stretch credulity quite a bit to imagine none of them had ever seen another in ten years. Anyway, they were now caricatures of 1967 women – a mom of even more, a soap opera star, an owner of a very successful business, and a feminist journalist. They immediately started fighting, then quickly made up, and talked about women being strong and helpful. The best part of the show was when the mom said she felt overlooked because everyone else had an important job and she was just a mom. They boosted her up – moms are the most important! – and she forgave them everything from the past. They repeated and repeated and repeated the same things about go! women! go! and I felt like leaving, but I still had to find out what the surprise was that instigated the reunion. Finally, we learned that the journalist had written a book about their cooking club, and she needed their permission to publish it. They were not in favor, because those things had been in confidence (what happens at cooking club, stays at cooking club), but the author said it was important, so everyone agreed. (It took that long.)
So. The play was a bit simple. There were some really great ideas that were skimmed over. There was some dialog a middle schooler could have written. I guess uneven would be most accurate.
The biggest problem was that it was a musical. Ouch. The four started the show with a doo wop type song to introduce themselves and I thought, “Oh, so sorry we can’t stay.” They were really wimpy – hard hard hard to hear over the four-piece band (who were good). They were not in tune with each other, and it really sounded like a cat fight. During solo pieces, the band really backed off and the not-in-tune wasn’t as hard to take, and then once in a while, someone sounded really good. Really good. I think everyone had some part in which she just shined. It was so uneven.
I still enjoyed myself. I thought into the simple stories they presented and filled in and added depth and thought about how you could really do something with this base. We had popcorn and Coke Zero, too.