Review: The Cake

Review: The Cake  | Firehouse Theater | The John Hand Theater, Denver, CO | Curtain Up! | Gina Robertson

The Cake brings to stage a moral dilemma familiar in Colorado due to a famous court case: what sort of moral lines can business owners or creative professionals draw for themselves with regard to gay weddings?

The case brought against Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood about ten years ago brought national attention to this question when a local baker refused to bake a cake for a gay wedding, and the Supreme Court upheld their right to do so. Many people wondered, why would a gay couple even want a bigoted baker to make their wedding cake when probably dozens of woke bakers all around the city could make a cake just as delicious and beautiful without any moral question at all?

This play by Bekah Brunstetter provides one possible answer to that question. What if the baker is a close, much loved family friend of the person getting gay married? Then the question isn’t a legal matter but a matter of inter-personal relationships and conscience. Using another baker means someone important is missing from the wedding.

Della (Kelly Uhlenhopp) owns a cake shop and has recently qualified for the Great American Baking Show, an honor she dreams of every day. She believes that following the instructions in life, as in baking, is the answer to a perfect outcome every time. For her, the bible provides the instructions to follow, along with her husband Tim. When the daughter of her late best friend comes home to North Carolina to get married, Della meets the “other bride” and is asked to make the cake for their wedding. She declines, in a nice way, but questions that choice knowing that she has hurt someone she loves.

For her part, the lesbian having returned home, Jen (Nicole Kaiser), is in her feelings as well because she knows her mother wouldn’t approve of her gay marriage any more than Della does, and she feels she’s a disappointment to someone she loves.

The gay marriage wedding cake issue isn’t often framed in this way, something director Troy Lakey says attracted him to this piece. He talks about his own family and a “stubborn decision not to give up on each other.”

“In this play, no one is a villain,” he says. And this is true. Even a super woke liberal can appreciate that Della and Tim are good, loving people genuinely looking to do the right thing and to love people the right way. Even a super conservative evangelical can see that Jen and Macy are in love and that they make each other happy. Isn’t that what we all want for our young adult children?

So the conflict occurs within the characters as they struggle to express what they need from one another and how they should or shouldn’t defend the limits on what they will do for one another. Under Lakey’s steady hand, energy builds at a natural pace to bring forth emotional release without flinching, daring viewers to look away.

Kelly Uhlenhopp is an amazing actress. Starting from a place of sweet southern baking church lady, she exudes charm and manners before cracking herself open on stage, giving confusion, frustration and desperation from the depths of Della’s soul. In a place like Denver, it takes tremendous courage to inhabit a role like this so completely, without even a hint of winking at the audience nor dodging the dogmatic aspects of this worldview that a person might not be proud of.

L to R: Kelly Uhlenhopp and Nicole Kaiser; Photo credit: Soular Radiant Photography

Della and Jen have an easy chemistry together, like mother and daughter, and Nicole Kaiser is a little blonde ray of sunshine. She too is struggling with the path her life has led her, saddled with the shame and guilt many good Christian girls from the South are given from birth, to keep them sweet, to keep them safe, to keep them quiet. Kaiser is a lovely, beaming bride and enjoys a comfortable bond with Macy, played by Jessica Eckenrod.

Eckenrod is fierce in her portrayal of Jen’s fiancée. She leaps over the polite ducking and weaving that Jen does to avoid confrontation and boldly challenges Della herself. Eckenrod is the distilled id of liberal culture, shouting into the face of unfair discrimination, essentially, “WTF?!” She is easy for some of us to relate to, having lost the willingness to be patient, to try and understand or to try and explain why just leaving gay people alone and letting them be happy together is actually the really right thing to do.  Yet Eckenrod avoids being shrill or preachy and somehow manages to find grace for Della, a comfortable truce, and an appreciation for pink lemonade cake.

L to R: Kelly Uhlenhopp and Jessica Eckenrod; Photo Credit: Soular Radiant Photography

The one man in this estrogen party is Della’s husband Tim, played by Jeff Jesmer. The story isn’t about him, but he manages to steal the scene from time to time as he appears in Della’s daytime fantasies as George, the host of the Great American Baking Show. He’s a plain man, a plumber, who works hard, doesn’t complain, comfortably props his head upon his wife’s breast without giving much thought to whether she’s happy or if she might like him to pay more attention to her breasts before rolling over in bed to go to sleep.

L to R: Kelly Uhlenhopp and Jeff Jesmer; Photo Credit: Soular Radiant Photography

Jesmer’s Tim is palpably uncomfortable when Della starts asking him to fulfill her needs. His casual dismissal of the lesbians is standard; he doesn’t have to give much thought to it, he knows what’s wrong with lesbians, and making a cake for them is out of the question. But his wife is harder to brush off because he loves her and does care about her happiness. He comes through in the end with a big effort and an unforgettable appearance costumed in mashed potatoes.

Intimate scenes are directed with creativity and sensitivity by Maya Ferrario and come across feeling very natural (or unnatural and awkward when called for). Props and set design by Samantha Piel are richly detailed and nicely arranged to suggest multiple rooms in a small space. Lighting designer Emily A. Maddox uses pulsing red light to reflect Della’s confusion and desperation and to give subtle cover for intimate scenes and partial nudity.

From Macy’s standard uniform of the young lesbian to Della’s church lady dresses and apron, costumes by Rachel Herring-Luna are character-perfect right down to Jen’s black combat boots with her traditional white wedding dress.

The Cake is a powerful little play, seductive like the delicious smell of lemon cake but hits like a karate chop to the place in the heart where childhood guilt and trauma are tucked away. Catch it through June 28 at Firehouse Theater in Denver.

For Information and Tickets: https://www.firehousetheatercompany.com/