There aren’t many multitudes to Della, a spry North Carolinian serving up cakes with gallons of sugary-sweet Southern charm, a side order of smiles always free. Yet Della holds conservative tendencies cloaked in parts of the bible that justify a very specific, subtle worldview that actually doesn’t welcome everyone.
City Lights Theater Company’s production of Bekah Brunstetter’s “The Cake,” with a heaping of assured direction from Lisa Mallette, offers a sharp blend of simplicity and complication. It subtly crafts a balanced level of conflict that explodes inside Della. Yet the script veers into simplistic territory too often despite its honesty and balance, engaging the subject matter with kid gloves. That’s no issue for the cast, whose members push past the play’s more problematic elements to craft a warm production.
Della (Luisa Sermol) lives a civil, uncomplicated life. She is giddy while talking cake, taking on a hefty amount of orders to stay busy. There are no children between Della and her rugged plumber husband Tim (Tom Gough), which maintains a specific level of beneath-the-surface pain the fun-loving couple shoos away as they dig into trash television at the end of a long day.
Wedding cakes are a vibe for Della’s flour-filled world, since she has crafted her share of them. And there is a major thrill when Della receives a visit from her late friend’s niece Jen (Lizzie Izyumin). There is clearly deep love rooted in history between the two, therefore it would be natural for Jen to request a cake from Della for her upcoming nuptials. But there’s a dilemma.
Jen isn’t marrying an ex-convict, thief, or someone who thinks cake consumption is a one-way ticket to Hell. She is marrying an accomplished, beautiful Black woman from Brooklyn named Macy (Sundiata Ayinde). However, all Della can see is immorality between any two female brides, hurriedly making an excuse of being slammed by orders in six months. Yup, way too busy to scoop an extra shot of batter for one whom she embraces as her own.
Della’s charms buy her a lot of capital, yet the script doesn’t always find her worthy of more intense interrogation, which would likely pierce the fraught situation even more. A certain older generation has struggled more with what is right and just when it comes to fighting the evils of bigotry regarding gay marriage, and Della is caught in the middle. Her faulty theology pushes her to one side, a late attempt to quote Corinthians ringing hollow, but there are moments where it feels she can be salvaged, likely long after the play concludes.
As the initial inorganic nature of Macy’s dialogue moves forward, Ayinde finds a certain comfort level and begins to fight harder within her character. Her Macy is at a severe disadvantage outside of her liberal, eastern seaboard bubble. And Izyumin proves to be a solid listener with Meisnerian sensibilities, at her best when reacting to the many painful let downs Della serves up like a warm slice of red velvet.
Those let-downs aren’t just reserved for Della’s giving hands. In one of the play’s more interesting subplots, the purpose of sex, long a weapon towards those who cannot procreate, is debated with truthful strokes. The play makes a strong case of how damaging these ideals are, where sex as intimate connection is secondary to making a baby. Even more harmful — sex belongs to a certain generation, an expiration date for lust only applied to an older body.
Real life married couple Gough and Sermol offer their best talents while exploring these ideas with humor and heart. Gough, a well-known South Bay funny man on both traditional and improv stages, bears down here and displays emotional, vulnerable truths (and one helluva mashed potato mountain).
The entire play runs through Sermol’s brilliance, a literal Broadway actor who finds every inch of bold nuance inside Della. Her understanding of how to set up payoffs with hilarity or heartache gives the show its powers. Her face is a canvas of expressive, enchanting elasticity that displays unbridled joy and profound loss. Notice the moments when she confronts defeat, cheeks as flush as the pink walls on Ron Gasparinetti’s highly functional scenic design. In those moments, will she grow away from the harm she causes?
Who knows. In a play like “The Cake,” there are answers, some clearer than others. But one thing is for certain — if love is ever allowed to flourish without reserve, a beautiful creation with butter, sugar, and flour will taste delicious for everyone.
David John Chávez is chair of the American Theatre Critics/Journalists Association and a two-time juror for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama (‘22-‘23); @davidjchavez.bsky.social.
‘THE CAKE’
By Bekah Brunstetter, presented by City Lights Theater Company
Through: June 8
Where: City Lights Theater, 529 S. Second St., San Jose
Running time: 90 minutes, no intermission
Tickets: $38-$63; cltc.org