The high-stress, high-intensity back-of-house goings-on at a classy New York City eatery come excitingly to life in Tony Menéses’s La Cocina, the latest from North Hollywood’s Loft Ensemble, and a particular treat for fans of Hulu’s The Bear.

La Cocina’s diners may find themselves savoring scrumptious cuisine in comfort and ease, but as the recent Best Comedy Series Emmy winner makes abundantly clear, peace and tranquility do not reign in “the room where it happens,” “it” in this case being the slicing and dicing and mixing and frying and baking (and all the other “-ings”) that go into making dining out an experience to remember.

Not to mention the behind-the-scenes drama that erupts when human lives intersect on a daily basis.

In other words, if ever there was a power-keg “backstage” environment for a playwright to explore, a restaurant kitchen is precisely that environment.

And if La Cocina’s kitchen is never less than organized chaos, it’s even more today so without the restaurant’s bussers and dish washers, their absence result of an altercation between cook Pablo (Alejandro Mungaray) and waiter Wesley (Esteban Vasquez) that has Wesley’s fellow gay servers Ray (Sean Alan Mazur) and Caleb (Matthew Scheel) up in arms and its undocumented workers fleeing a possible ICE raid.

All of which makes newcomer Monique’s (Leah Haile) first day as chef particularly stressful, though if front-of-house and back-of-house can join forces to fill in for the missing Luis, Jose, Carlos, Juan, Arturo, and Paco, customers should be none the wiser.

Loft Ensemble audience members, on the other hand, get to be flies on the walls for the most thrilling of theatrical roller coaster rides, one that playwright Menéses wrote for his fellow Juilliard students when La Cocina made its 2022 debut on the prestigious New York campus, followed by a Fordham University run last year.

Adam Chambers directs the play’s professional World Premiere to electrifying effect, choreographing action-packed scenes with Hamilton-like precision and pizzazz, and never more so than in a pair of rap sequences to do Lin Manuel Miranda proud.

Indeed I can’t think of another production that has kept my eyes darting here and there and everywhere in-between as chef Monique, sous chef Frances (Emelie Felina), and cooks Nick (Biniyam Abreha), Rotini (Paul L. Davis), Annie (Rose Scalish), Paul (Max Reed III), Marcelle (Bree Pavey), Krystian (Benjamin Anderson), and Pablo had me convinced I was eye-witnessing a bona fide kitchen staff in action, no matter that no actual food ingredients get sliced and diced and mixed and fried and baked in the process.

Not that servers Ray, Caleb, Wesley, Daphne (Sarah Nilsen), Gwen (Chloe Scott), Winnie (Paige Juliana Willis), and Molly (Dani True) aren’t kept almost equally busy, leaving only owner-from-hell Sylvia (Berenice Diaz) and restaurant host Helen (Jay Hoshina) to have it relatively easy.

Last but not least, playwright Menéses stirs in a bit of front-and-back-of-house romance between Pablo and Helen, a powerhouse post-confrontation meeting between Pablo and Wesley, and an “Unhoused Guy” (Nathan Thurman) whose sudden arrival makes for the production’s most touching and devastating scene.

A number of cast members stand out among a highly diverse ensemble, in particular Haile’s caught-between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place Monique, Mungaray’s flawed but open-to-change Pablo, Reed’s generous-hearted Army vet Paul (who also strums and sings to powerful effect), and a heartbreaking Thurman as a man who’s served his country and gotten little in return, with only a miscast Diaz out of her depth as monster boss Sylvia.

Madylin Sweeten Durrie’s set is a minutely-detailed wonder (with additional snaps to Natasha Renae Potts’ multitude of kitchen props), Tor Brown’s lighting and Mark McClain Wilson’s sound design enhance the drama and tension every step of the way, and other than a couple of skin-tight micro-mini skirts inappropriate for a restaurant as classy as La Cocina would appear to be, Jess Moreno Caycho’s costumes are topnotch. (Thumbs down, however, to whoever decided it would be okay for La Cocina’s longer-haired kitchen workers to forgo hair restraints while preparing food.)

La Cocina is produced by Pavey. Sam Gordon is assistant director. Ignacio Navarro is production stage manager an Skylar DeShane is assistant stage manager. Ken Werther is publicist. Cast members Emilie Crotty, Carlos Gomez, Jr, Kirsten Jones, and Elena Nicholson did not appear at the performance reviewed.

I went into La Cocina hoping for something special, and something special is what I got. As exciting a theatrical ride as any playgoer could ask for, Tony Menéses’s multi-hander sets the bar high for the rest of Loft Ensemble’s 2023-2024 season.

Loft Ensemble, 11031 Camarillo St., North Hollywood.
www.loftensemble.org

Steven Stanley
January 19, 2024
Photos: Sean Durrie

Tags: Loft Ensemble, Los Angeles Theater Review, Tony Menéses