'Sweet, Salty, Bitter, Sour'

Spent a hour and a half yesterday at a hole-in-the-wall theater in Arlington called Prologue Theatre, where I saw an autobiographical, one-woman show called Sweet, Salty, Bitter, Sour. The solo player was Jane Petkofsky, who has appeared at several theaters around the Washington metro area. She performs in a set ostensibly depicting the kitchen of the playwright, Eileen Mandell, who herself was a co-founder of a theater known as 1st Stage and also started an audience-participation organization known as StageWise.

During the performance, the star prepares a Quiche Lorraine and a strudel--I'm always delighted when there's sleight-of-hand involved but I was willing to accept that these were actually prepared and baked while we watched the show.  Since then, I've read that she did learn how to cook these items, so my instant feeling that that was what was happening turned out to be correct.

To me, this play--billed as a "world premiere"--showed how amazing what some might see as a conventional life can prove to be. The playwright's life included a complex yet all too typical marriage and significant travel as well as challenges of all kinds. It completely absorbed my attention for the approximately 80 minutes onstage. The memories she conjures up are not surprising: growing up with a firecracker grandmother, dealing with parents who split, and becoming a caretaker when her husband is hit by a terminal illness.

Ms. Petkofsky's performance was sparkling, including just the right measuring spoon (sorry) of humor amid the recounting of family experiences. It does conjure up the era of "kitchen-table" dramas popular especially in Britain in the 50's by the generation of playwrights who just preceded the "angry young men" such as John Osborne. One of those playwrights who focused on domestic scenes was Arnold Wesker, whose best-known piece was Chicken Soup With Barley. I did see a production of his Chips With Everything once in London and it incorporated the timeless topic of class conflict in the U.K.

Jane Petkofsky retired from a legal career to devote herself to the theatre; I confess that I was a colleague back in the days when she worked as a counsel for the courts, including the Supreme Court. In this one-woman show, she truly has rendered a fine performance in a well-conceived memoir play.