The Cake

“See, what you have to do is really, truly follow the directions,” says Della (Erla Faye Forsyth) of Della’s Sweets in Winston-Salem, North Carolina as she lets us in on the secrets of baking a cake so good “you want to crawl into it”. But following directions are also Della’s approach to her religious beliefs and her pastor tells her homosexuality is a sin.

The most interesting aspect of Bekah Brunstetter’s play is that Della is a truly likeable character: she’s funny and caring and deeply human. She’s the kind of woman who turns up on the doorstep of someone recently bereaved with flowers from her garden and a homemade lasagna. Wanting, but never having had children of her own, Della is like a second mother to Jen (Stephanie Elgersma), the daughter of her best friend who died five years ago. When grownup Jen comes down from New York, where she now lives, to ask Della to make her wedding cake, Della is thrilled until she discovers there are “two brides” – one is Jen, the other is Macy (Cecily Day). Suddenly Della is thrown into a quandary: to bake or not to bake.

Brunstetter does a really fine balancing act in The Cake although it’s difficult to see exactly what brought Jen and Macy together. Jen is almost over the moon at finding little starry string lights at Michael’s – lights she plans to use at the reception. She seems younger than her years – almost childlike. This impression is enhanced by her faded, cropped jean jacket, pretty cotton print dress and blond ponytail. Corporate-appearing Macy, on the other hand, is a writer for Jezebel, an online magazine whose tagline is, “The latest news on Gender, Culture, and Politics. With Teeth.” And teeth are what Macy has and she’s not afraid to use them especially when it comes to homophobes which is the way she sees Della. Macy: worldly and political; Jen: sweet and girly. What, exactly, are the ingredients for the attraction between these two?

The same could be argued for Della and her ‘good ol’ boy’ husband Tim (Tim Dixon). There’s no doubt he rules the roost and when he hollers at Della, “You’re not makin’ that cake!” she knows she’s bucking both Tim and God. We do discover that things have been better between Tim and Della and in a scene so brave and so funny, we see them rediscover something lost years ago. It involves mashed potatoes. Believe it.

The icing on this particular cake is Erla Faye Forsyth. As Della, Forsyth pulls from her own larder a wealth of ingredients: humour, scrappiness, defiance, optimism, girlishness, wisdom, generosity and, yes, even sexiness. A thread running through The Cake is Della’s forthcoming appearance on CBS’s The Great American Baking Show with host George whom Della thinks is hot and gorgeous. Fantasy sequences, with voice over (Tariq Leslie) and lighting cues (by lighting designer Michael K. Hewitt), are woven through the play giving glimpses into Della’s inner fears and yearnings.

Set design by Lauchlin Johnston turn Pacific Theatre into a pink and white confection: the interior of Della’s Sweets with shelves of lavishly iced cakes and a glass display case of other sweet delectables. Magically, the shelves are pushed up into the walls – like murphy beds – to reveal beds in which we find Jen and Macy or, on the other side of the set, Della and Tim. We first meet Della, icing bag in hand, adding real pink rosettes to a foot-high angel food cake.

Presented by Pacific Theatre and directed by Angela Konrad, the balance never falters. We feel equally for both Jen and Della. “Love is hard”, says Della, and it is, especially when values conflict. Humour keeps this cake light but real. “God made butter and sugar as a reward”, says Della. Someone, probably someone like Aristophanes, ‘made’ humour to make difficult concepts entertaining and palatable.

Thankfully, playwright Brunstetter avoids a facile ending. Tough issues aren’t easily resolved and sometimes the best we can hope for is a civilized agreement to disagree. To gentle kneading, add time, and wait. It works for making bread; maybe it will eventually work for Della.