Sugary-Without-Much-Filling Pie: Despite Strong Performances and Some Nice Moments, Musical 'Waitress' Feels Half-Baked -- Chicago Theater Review

Theater Review

Waitress

a recent musical

First National Tour

Cadillac Palace, Chicago

Thru July 22

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I would be hard-pressed to tell you many specifics about it--or my reaction to it--but I know I saw the 2007 indie film, Waitress, at some point and seem to recall it as enjoyable enough if largely forgettable.

What, sadly, hasn't been forgettable is the real-life tragedy accompanying the movie.

A few months prior to Waitress' premiere at Sundance in 2007--which preceded the May theatrical release--the film's writer, director and co-star, Adrienne Shelly, was murdered in a Greenwich Village apartment she used as an office.

I don't think I heard about the movie--which starred Keri Russell between Felicity and The Americans--until it came out on DVD, but I know I knew of Shelly's death when I watched it.

Shelley, who was married with a young child, was killed by a construction worker with whom she seemingly had no connection, other than him having access to her building. 

So although it is difficult to watch Jenna, the central character in Waitress--both the movie and the
musical based on it--deal with an unhappy marriage to an angry husband who berates and presumably abuses her, the sad reality of Shelly's death doesn't really impact one's viewing of the musical, now in Chicago on its first National Tour.

Marketed in part around its all-female creative team--noted singer Sara Bareilles wrote the music & lyrics, Jessie Nelson the show's book (based on the film), Diane Paulus directs (as on Broadway) and Lorin Latarro is the choreographer, though there isn't much dancing--the Waitress musical could conceivably appeal to women more than it did to me. 

It was great to see the Cadillac Palace balcony packed during the show's second week in town, and if you loved it, I'm genuinely glad you did.

But the quality of a great show should be readily apparent across a wide spectrum of audience members, and though Waitress is a mostly genial affair, little about it screams, "This is awesome."

Certainly, with understudy Emily Koch ably handling the lead role of Jenna in Desi Oakley's stead on the night I attended, the performers in this tour cast are first-rate. 

While I found most of the songs by Bareilles--whose pop canon I do not know--to lack the wit, charm and memorablility of great showtunes, all were well-sung, including quite demonstrably by Koch on "What Baking Can Do" and the late-in-show "She Used to Be Mine."

As a quick synopsis, Jenna is a prolific, highly-imaginative--both in terms of ingredients and names of the concoctions--pie maker for Joe's Diner, where she also works as a waitress alongside sassy Becky (Charity Angel Dawson) and reserved Dawn (Lenne Klingaman). 

Unavoidably--and perhaps purposely--conjuring up the Dixie Chicks' "Goodbye, Earl" for anyone who knows that song of a battered wife's revenge, Jenna's awful husband is, yes, Earl (Nick Bailey). 

Early in the show, Jenna fears that thanks to a drunken night, she is pregnant with the couple's first child, and in one of the more clever songs, her gal pals urge her to focus on "The Negative" as she takes a home pregnancy test in the diner restroom. 

The boss at the diner--whose locale is unstated but seemingly somewhere in the American South--is the belligerent Cal (Ryan G. Dunkin), while the elderly, wealthy owner, Joe (Larry Marshall) is also Jenna's best customer. (In the movie, Andy Griffith notably played Joe.)

Joe encourages Jenna to enter a local pie making contest in hopes of winning a $20,000 grand prize that would supposedly allow her to extricate herself from Earl, but why Joe wouldn't otherwise help her toward that end--especially as the pies she bakes seem to account for most of the diner's income--is one of those "don't think too deeply" plot holes. 

Having joined "Club Knocked Up" early in Act I, Jenna goes to see her longtime doctor, pie in hand, only to discover that Connecticut transplant Dr. Jim Pomatter has taken over the practice. 

The doctor is also married, but this doesn't seem to matter to anyone, as Jenna and Jim sing some decent duets--"It Only Takes a Taste," "Bad Idea"--and well, yada, yada, yada. 

Romance also strikes for Dawn, with a fun nerd named Ogie (the superb Jeremy Morse), and also for others at the unapologetically adulterous diner. 

That's as far as I'll explain the plot, mostly genial if underwhelming as it is. 

And while Bareilles puts considerable pathos into her songs, they just--per the oldest and tritest musical critique--need to be catchier. 

I listened to the Broadway Cast Recording--featuring the wondrous Jessie Mueller--on Spotify a good bit before attending Waitress on Tuesday, and still am hard pressed to name, and absolutely not hum, any of the songs a few days later. 

And though, as I noted in a review just a few days ago, musicals can come in many forms and need not heed age-old tropes, Waitress seems to suffer for its lack of production numbers, dancing, universality, or many of the things that make musicals truly special. 

My pal alongside opined that it basically felt like a play with songs, not a full-fledged musical.

As Jenna might note--especially as Waitress features some rather provocative sexual innuendo, particularly during an Act II reprise of "Bad Idea"--some pies turn out so delicious as to be positively orgasmic, while others are just "OK," despite the best of efforts and intentions.

Same with musicals, and while I think it was logical for Waitress to be adapted for Broadway--where it's been running for more than two years--and applaud it simply for making more people aware of Adrienne Shelly and the movie she made, ultimately the end result isn't mouth-watering, but really just an amiable serving of "just so-so."