By Lonnie Burstein Hewitt. Photo by Rich Soublet Photography.
In the Limelight: Christina Kirk as Julia with Norbert Leo Butz as Paul Child and choreographed set-changers in the background.
Appropriately for a night-after-Valentine’s Day opening, The Recipe is a world premiere featuring an over six-foot tall and rather annoyingly-voiced young woman from Pasadena who manages to discover the recipe for love and success by never giving up her quest for a useful and interesting life or losing her sense of humor. The woman, if you haven’t already heard, is Julia Child, in her pre-TV-chef phase.
Written by Claudia Shear, whose solo show “Blown Sideways Through Life” about the weird jobs she’d had before finding her way as a writer/performer I’d seen decades ago and never forgotten, it’s another play bound to wriggle its way into viewers’ memories.
In the beginning, Julia Carolyn McWilliams only knows what she doesn’t want: a conventional Pasadena lifestyle and husband. She was not happy at Smith College, where what interested everyone most about her was that she could easily reach things on the highest shelves.
Nothing else comes easily to Julia, who takes up secretarial skills, hoping to score a position at the New Yorker. When World War II breaks out, she manages to get a job in Sri Lanka as a secretary for the OSS, a forerunner of the CIA.
There her luck really changes: she meets Paul Child, a Foreign Service Officer who was said to know everything. A serious person, 10 years older than Julia and five inches shorter, he fell in love with her, and she found herself loving him. He led her to Paris, where she then fell in love with the art of cooking, and he continued providing support and encouragement whenever problems arose.
The play was beautifully staged and lit, with moveable sets that were danced in and out by the actors. And the opening night audience was tremendously receptive, sometimes calling out responses to one of Julia’s lines.
Christina Kirk plays Julia, Norbert Leo Butz plays Paul, and Lisa Peterson has directed this delightful production, with choreographer David Neumann adding the right moves, Rachel Hauck doing scenic design, and Ben Stanton lighting design.
The show runs through March
28, and tickets aren’t easy to come by, since this Recipe has great word-of-mouth
and it’s pretty much sold out. But take a cue from Julia: keep on trying.
Go to https://securesite.lajollaplayhouse.org/events where you’ll find the Performance Calendar, and the following
suggestions:
The Recipe: Many dates are
currently sold out, but tickets may be released closer to performance dates.
Go to the website, join our email list to be notified and follow us on Instagram where we post ticket
releases.
Lonnie Burstein
Hewitt is an award-winning author/lyricist/playwright who has
been writing about arts and lifestyles in San Diego County for over a dozen
years. You can reach her at hew2@sbcglobal.net
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