Berkeley Rep’s ‘The Cook’ brings Cuba’s revolution into the kitchen

First the revolution is political. Then it tries to march its way into the kitchen — and the bedroom.

By the end, decades after Fidel Castro’s takeover of Cuba, the revolution reaches its last holdout: inside one woman’s mind.

In the era-hopping 2003 play “The Cook,” which opened Wednesday, Sept. 9, at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Gladys’ awakening is a foregone conclusion that playwright Eduardo Machado delays for three acts. This cook in the mansion of pre-revolutionary aristocrats is so obsequiously loyal to her former employers for so long that the only possible outcome is a thunderclap of disappointment. The deck is so stacked against her that the stage practically lists.

But as Gladys (Yesenia Iglesias) keeps her promise to Adria (Gisela Chípe) to maintain the home that Adria is fleeing in the middle of a New Year’s Eve ball on Dec. 31, 1958 — and then keeps on keeping it, for a credulity-straining four decades — Machado doesn’t merely stoke dread. He constructs an intricate yet expansive Cuba-in-miniature where the fate of the country seems to rest on individual relationships.

In Gladys’ exuberant kitchen, which, in Tanya Orellana’s set design, is so bursting with spice jars and copper pans and aqua tiles that it’s like a blooming garden of life, Machado keeps forming and re-forming triangular relationships. First, unfortunately, he trudges them through the kind of exposition-laden conversations that real people never need to have about the basic details of their lives. But once his juices are flowing, it seems that on almost every line he switches which two characters are allied against the odd one out. 

In the play’s second and best act, set in 1972, Gladys and her husband, Carlos (Daniel Duque-Estrada), agree that her cousin Julio (Ashton Muñiz) should curb his flamboyance in behavior and dress rather than be a target of the police. But Julio and Gladys both feel that Carlos’ ego and machismo have gotten out of hand, now that he’s gone from being the lowly chauffeur at Adria’s estate — a job Gladys got him — to “sub-minister of transportation” in Castro’s regime. 

Meanwhile, Carlos and Julio both know that Gladys’ servile devotion to Adria — whose family taught her to read novels and supported her culinary education, and who herself frequently took Gladys in her arms, demanding her friendship — is delusional, certain to end badly. (In a smart balancing act, though, Machado makes Carlos just as deferential to Castro, so who’s the most blind?)

As colorism, sexism, classism, anti-gay prejudice, authoritarianism, colonialism and the globalized economy all infiltrate the kitchen, director David Mendizábal doesn’t always define the rules of a given scene. The importance of Adria’s party seems to drift in and out, as does anticipation and terror of Castro. 

In 1958, Gladys is already supposed to be an amazing cook, but her handling of utensils and her finished products both look amateurish. In 1972, when Julio fears the police tailing him right outside Gladys’ window, Muñiz seems to forget that feeling except in the moments when the lines call for them to express it.

But Mendizábal excels at ratcheting exchanges toward emotional climaxes. When Adria has absconded and her party guests are left stranded, the servants all smoking cigarettes with potato-colored paper, Gladys says, “Tell them their world ended at midnight.” Iglesias, who has many stop-in-your-tracks line readings, speaks with the thrill and danger of allowing herself to ponder change out loud. She’s still not totally sure what to believe, but she’s seeing how the words taste, and she likes the flavor.

Likewise, when Gladys asks a favor from Carlos long after their marriage has deteriorated, Duque-Estrada makes the moment freeze in time. His Carlos could have simply lorded his newfound leverage over her, but first he pauses to look at her as if she’s a new bride all over again. That’s how much he still loves her, in spite of everything, and how genuinely grateful he is to have a rare husband-and-wife moment. He surprises himself with his tenderness, even as he’s about to force her to make the most terrible decision of her life.

If “The Cook” must disillusion Gladys, Machado could have simply ended on the triumphant feeling of casting off false consciousness. He’s a cannier playwright, though. In his perspicacious understanding of his native land, if knowledge is power, it also means resignation.