The Cooking Show, November 6, 2005, Wortham Center's Cullen Theater

This work by Hope Stone is eclectic, suprising, and delightful. I saw excerpts of The Cooking Show back in June, so I already had some idea what was coming, but I was pleasantly surprised by the diversity of the show. A one-act performance, each section went in a new direction. It started with an "appetizer," as the program called it: Swedish Meatballs, choreographed by Jane Weiner and Lawrence Keigwin and performed by Ms. Weiner and Rob Davidson. This back-and-forth duet evoked the experience of sharing a kitchen with a spouse, where different habits lead to minor conflicts that are resolved by mutual affection. (Think of your significant other drinking juice straight from the carton or leaving a bag of chips open to get stale. Not that it's ever happened to me or anything.) The music, by Caterina Valente, was swingish and created a playful mood. The "main course" was The Cooking Show proper, which featured all of the Hope Stone dancers as well as some children from the Hope Center school. Each section presented a different aspect of how food affects our lives, from cookbooks to chefs to problems we might have with eating it. After the initial section, in which the dancers threw flour onto the stage, Alicia Moore Chew entered wearing a long, hooded cape and carrying a Betty Crocker cookbook (yes, the one your mother bought you when you went to college) in the manner of a medieval monk. As she chanted a list of ingredients, she proceeded slowly around the stage, the train of her cape sweeping aside the flour. It might not have been significant, but by the end of the section there was very nearly a peace symbol marked out on the floor. One of my favorite moments came in the "snack food" section, which was accompanied on piano by Stephen Tran, an accompaniest at the Houston Ballet Academy, in fact a very fine one. The dancers entered the stage carrying bags of popcorn, potato chips, and the like. In one swift move, Lindsey McGill placed a bag of Lays potato chips on the stomach of Joe Modlin and then swung up and into Mr. Modlin to pop the bag in a rather striking manner. The sharpest comedy came when Susan Blair, Amy Ell, and Penny Tschirhart brought purses onto the stage from which they each produced a sizeable raw steak. Placing the steaks on a table, each woman proceeded to tenderize her steak with a small mallet. There was no music except the sound of slapping the steaks and pounding the mallets in a complicated rhythm that the dancers did an excellent job maintaining. After one of the women had a rather more satistfying experience using a salt shaker, jealousy ensued. The women progressed to one-upwomanship, producing larger and larger mallets from their purses. In the end the steaks were left in tatters and the audience was left in stitches. The bios in the program had a rather unusual feature, with each company member including a comment about food. Ms. McGill includes a recipe for a concoction of chocolate, butterscotch, peanut butter, and butter; my only question is what does she call it? (probably "dessert") Ice cream and sushi were popular choices among the other dancers. Four-year-old Claire Carothers professes to wanting to be either a farmer, an astronaut, or Cinderella when she grows up. Hmm, me too!