The Kitchen at National Theatre

The Kitchen at National Theatre

08 September, 2011
by: Naima Khan

An over-emphasis on the stylistics of National Theatre's producton of The Kitchen overshadows the content of Arnold Wesker's script says Naima Khan.

There's no food in The Kitchen! Would it be expensive? Impractical? Really messy? Yeah probably, but it'd be worth it. A play set in a crowded restaurant kitchen featuring real food or some sort of believable alternative would stand a chance of saying something new, which this production sadly fails to do, making this revival of one of Arnold Wesker's weaker plays rather pointless.

It seems to have been created in two minds. On the one hand, director Bijan Sheibani appears to want to highlight the reality of the relationships that exist within this play. We learn a little of the pastry chef's mean wife, the rivalries between the workers and the troubles of German Peter.

As Peter gets to grips with England and the English, he is also seeing a married woman, Monique. In this revival, Peter, like many of his fellow kitchen workers, is a simple exaggeration of a hopeful foreigner in new country. The amplification of characteristics on stage makes it difficult to get to grips with the relationships Sheibani seeks to illuminate. And when there is something interesting it's not picked up on. What was it like for Peter as a German in England in the '50s? How did the waitresses cope with constant and accepted objectification?

On the other hand, Sheibani is overly concerned with the stylistics. After an inexcusably slow start – if a scene is slow it needs to be at least intriguing – we see the kitchen workers and the waitresses whirl around each other in choreographed routines. They mime dishing out food, they snap at each other and complain loudly, but the points they make are overshadowed by the unnecessary breaks in their movement. The huge cast freezes, while two or three characters rattle off their lines and further exaggerate their already predictable caricatures. Then, snap, everyone's back in play.

It's a potentially great technique that Ricky Dukes' 2010 fringe production of The White Devil used beautifully and more importantly, with purpose. Here, it's over-used and becomes utterly banal. It doesn't draw attention to much and the lack of pace in the dialogue means we don't get to appreciate the insanely busy kitchen for what it is.

There is ample room for Wesker's tale of '50s working dynamics to be turned into something relevant to an audience today. Read his notes on his days working in a Paris kitchen and most of what you hear is a loud, unyielding voice of exhaustion, frustration and exploitation.

In the final preview performance that I saw, we briefly hear the sound of a marginalised population of workers struggling to get through the day, let alone get ahead. But it is barely memorable in this glossy but empty production which fails miserably to hone in on the finer points of Wesker's script.


The Kitchen runs at National Theatre until 6th November.



Image by Marc Brenner

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Naima Khan