Recently opening on the West End, “Waitress” is a musical revolving around pies, friendship, and self-discovery.

 Coming off of its Broadway run, Katherine McPhee stars as Jenna, a waitress who creates and bakes her feelings into pies, and while dealing with her unwanted pregnancy and an affair with her doctor, there are a lot of pastries to be made.

The plot line is simple: Jenna hopes to save up enough money to enter a pie contest, in which she will use the prize money to escape her abusive husband Earl.

She is supported by her two fellow waitress best friends, who are each undergoing their own romantic drama, her gynaecologist turned lover, and a grumpy old man, who turns out to be the one who changes Jenna’s life for the better.

The music, written by Sara Bareilles, is extremely catchy and carries the show, cutting through some of the cheesy acting and dancing on stage.

Although the extreme humor is welcome, and truly funny, mainly due to actor Jack McBrayer (30 Rock), who serves as the love interests for one of Jenna’s waitress friends, the topics in this show are modern day feminist issues that were taken too lightly.

The female dominated cast represents the struggle of cheating, dating, unwanted pregnancies, abusive spouses, and love lightly, and although every female character ends up happy in the end, emotional conflict and feeling only seems to come from Jenna.

The ending of the play is almost as sweet as the pies baked in Jenna’s new confection shop, with each character getting what they deserve.

The storyline is quintessentially American, and going into the musical, I was skeptical about the simplicity of the plotline revolving around a small-town American diner and its wait-staff.

However, despite its simple plotline, it’s catchy, happy, and honest, a modern-day musical example of how to deal with life when it doesn’t go the way you thought it would.

Photo by R. Mac Wheeler on Unsplash

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