(Above: Left to right, Anya Pearson, Tara Wibrew, Tinamarie Ivey and Patrick Dizney are the cast of Oregon Contemporary Theatre’s production of The Cake; photo courtesy of OCT)
By Randi Bjornstad
Willow Norton, director for the play, The Cake, that opens Oregon Contemporary Theatre’s 2019-20 season on Sept. 27, is nothing if not excited about the arts situation in the Eugene-Springfield area.
“The arts here are booming,” says 36-year-old Norton, who returned to her home turf after spending several years in the arts milieu in New York City. “People here consider themselves to be creative and the community to be creative, and they want to support arts of all kinds. A lot of people are excited to be in Eugene now.”
As the single parent of a young daughter, Norton appreciates the differences between Eugene and New York City in trying to pursue dual careers in parenting and the arts.
“As a single parent, I am always tired,” she admits with her easy laugh. “In New York, you have to give all to the work and compromise the time you have to parent. But here, I appreciate the ability to have early rehearsals so I can put my daughter to bed. And with the crew of this play, the costumer has a 1-year-old, and everyone here understands and accepts the needs of families.”
Norton has been an artist-in residence at Lane Community College and co-founded the Oregon Performance Lab, an “incubator” for live performance groups, there. She substitute teaches for acting classes and will direct a show at LCC next spring.
That doesn’t mean that the Big Apple has lost its juiciness entirely.
“I am based here now, but I still have the flexibility to make trips back there, which is still important to me,” Norton says.
But right now, her focus is on The Cake.
The play
“I was attracted to The Cake as soon as I read it,” Norton says. “I love realistic dialogue that has moments of magic. And I was immediately attracted to the main character, Della — I really thought I wouldn’t like her at all, but I love her.”
That’s because of the power of this play to bridge differences and show how people can seem far apart but still find ways to connect and appreciate each other, she says.
Willow Norton directs The Cake, the opening show of the Oregon Contemporary Theatre’s 2019-20 season; photo by Randi Bjornstad
As a hopeful examination of the current corrosive divisiveness in this country, “To me, this play offers hope for how conservatives and liberals can sit together and then walk away eating cake together — it can happen when we go beyond issues and try to be kind to each other.”
In an imitation of life — years of recent protracted court battles over whether bakers and florists may refuse service to couples preparing to celebrate same-sex marriages — The Cake revolves around Della, who is the best baker in her home town, which is decidedly politically and philosophically “red.”
But soon Della also is challenged in her beliefs and attachments, because her best friend’s daughter is planning to be married, and it turns out it is a same-sex relationship. But rather than a hard-hitting polemic on the issue, The Cake examines the situation in the form of a romantic comedy as its characters try to find a way to maintain their relationships as they personally confront issues that were always someone else’s before.
Prolific playwright Bekah Brunstetter “invites us to laugh at hot button topics that some see as frivolous while others experience as an insidious personal attack,” Craig Willis, OCT’s producing artistic director, said in announcing the play. “The Cake gives the audience a chance to consider—and laugh at—all sides of a contentious debate: Who has the right to bake and eat cake?”
That distinction follows the threads of the real-life quandary. Are bakers artists who have the right to decide who can partake of their creation? Or are they providers of a service that can’t be withheld on the basis of protected class, such as race, gender, religion, age, disability, and sexual orientation.
The four-person cast is led by OCT veterans Tinamarie Ivey as Della, with Tara Wibrew as one of the brides-to-be, Jen, and Patrick Dizney as Della’s husband, Tim. Anya Pearson, a Portland actor making her first appearance on the OCT stage, plays Jen’s fiancée, Macy.
The production crew includes scenic designer Amy Dunn, costumes by DeMara Cabrera, properties design by Becca Blanchard, and lighting by Michael Peterson. Ellen Kress is dialect coach, and Christle O’Neill is production stage manager.
Umm, smells good
Norton warns potential audiences that when they watch The Cake, they also will experience mouth-watering sights and smells.
“We have 19 cakes onstage during the performance,” she says. “We eat cake, we make frosting. When you walk in, you smell sugar and the magical atmosphere of a bakery — but it’s all gluten-free, so no one who is gluten-intolerant needs to worry.”
The cast worked with the nearby Noisette bakery to learn how to bake cakes, frost them, and decorate them, she says, “so this play is an interesting combination of thoughtfulness and entertainment.”
As someone who grew up in Eugene, the smell and feel of the set reminds Norton both of the Prince Pückler’s ice cream parlor with its black-and-white checkered floor and the former Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlor where hundreds of area children celebrated their birthdays with ice cream and a rousing “Happy Birthday” song punctuated by vibrating beatrs of a big bass drum.
But most of all, Norton hopes people will go away filled with a greater appreciation of their own and others’ abilities to live together peaceably.
“The reason I came to love the character of Della is because I love the effort she puts into trying to be accepting,” Norton says. “She doesn’t know that’s how she wants to be, but she learns that it’s easy to hate someone you don’t know, but much harder to hate someone you do.”
The Cake “isn’t a play that says you are right or wrong,” she says. “It says you will have ideas and beliefs, but even so, life is always better when we try to be kinder to each other.”
It’s a short play — 110 minutes with no intermission — and it all takes place in the present in Della’s Sweet Shop.
The Cake
When: Pay-what-you-can previews at 7:30 p.m. on Sept. 25-26, followed by 7:30 p.m. shows on Sept. 27-28, Oct. 3-5 and 10-12 , with 2 p.m. matinees on Oct. 6 and 13
Where: Oregon Contemporary Theatre, 194 W. Broadway, Eugene
Tickets: $20 to $42 regular, $15 for students with valid ID (except opening night on Sept. 27); available online at octheatre.org or at the ticket office, 541-465-1506
