COCONUT CAKE

by Melda Beaty
February, 2025
The Black Rep

St Louis Art Scene

BLACK REP's "COCONUT CAKE" IS AN OLD BRO BAKE-OFF

by CB Adams / February 10, 2025

It’s a bold move by playwright Melda Beaty to create “Coconut Cake” with five male characters who spend their days at a local fast-food restaurant, supplanting the more common barbershop setting. Informing her script were actual listening sessions she conducted with men of a certain age, and there’s certainly a vibe, especially during the first half of the play, of being a fly on the wall as the characters drink coffee, eat unhealthy food, play chess and talk about their health, politics, young-buck days and love (and lust) lives.

As a member of an all-male support group, I can attest to the accuracy of a predominance of chatter involving the many ways men think – and live – through their dumb-sticks. So, for the women in attendance at the Black Rep’s production of “Coconut Cake,” your suspicions (or intuitions) that this is indeed how a band of bawdy brothers interact, regardless of their age is, alas, true.

One of the most interesting aspects of this play regards the title. Given the subject matter, why did Beaty use coconut cake as the title – what is the significance of that choice. The answer lies, I suspect, in the off-stage females in the lives of the men on the stage. Some are spouses, some are relatives, some are children and one is a woman-of-mystery (Pat Brulée) who moves into their neighborhood bearing the coconut cake of the title.

Not all men partake of her confection, but all are aware of the woman and are attracted to her Eve-like offering (cake rather than apple). There are numerous references to organized religion, faith and the Bible, so this interpretation is not a stretch. With nary a word of dialogue, Ms. Brulée profoundly impacts the group and shakes up the men’s carefully maintained facades. She is the instrument of change in this play, thus making “Coconut Cake” a play, at one level, about men – and featuring only men on stage – from a female perspective. Yet, all the off-stage women of mystery have their secrets revealed by and through the men. Kudos to Beaty for pulling off this theatrical feat.

The play’s set in the intimate black box A. E. Hotchner Studio Theatre, is a clean, well-lighted space with the sterile ambiance found in chain restaurants and hospital cafeterias. Tammy Honesty’s spot-on set design and Tony Anselmo’s shadow-less lighting (his first lighting design for the Black Rep) and transitions create a fluid, immersive experience, subtly reinforcing the play’s emotional beats.

Upon this effective stage tread a quartet of mostly retired men (plus an unhoused man, Gotdamnit), as they engage in their routine—a mix of camaraderie and commiseration—with the predictable rhythm of a long-standing ritual. Though necessary to establish these characters, it takes a while (the first half of the play, in fact) to set up the plot – requiring a certain amount of patience.

Even their distractions are routine. Each day, a striking woman parks her car and walks to a nearby building. Whenever she arrives, the men move downstage, entranced – with a reverential quality to their admiration. Each day, Gotdamnit appears to intercept the mysterious woman, exchanges a few words with her, then joins the group inside, where he habitually collects a dollar from each man.

Director Geovonday Jones employs clever staging choices like these, crafting a seamless flow of interactions while drawing strong performances from a talented cast. Alan Phillips’ sound design, including classic Chicago blues tunes as you enter the theater, also contribute to the sense of place and establish and reinforce the play’s emotional ambiance.

Richard Harris embodies Joe, a flashy real estate operator who has never settled down and steers clear of church. Harris plays him with a smooth, self-satisfied air, flashing his Rolex and diamond rings while boasting about his conquests. His ever-present bottle of “blue diamonds” (a not-so-subtle nod to erectile dysfunction medication) becomes a symbol of his bravado – though a bit overdone (a script issue, not his).

Joe’s longtime friend Eddie, played with a charming swagger by Duane Foster, faces mounting troubles at home. His wife, Iris, long aware of his infidelities, has grown increasingly furious—her anger turning to physical threats, including lying in wait with a butcher knife. Foster delivers a layered performance, capturing Eddie’s mix of bravado, vulnerability, and growing desperation.

Marty, played by Richard E. Waits, acts as the group’s steadying force. A deacon with a “unique” marital dynamic, he is the closest thing to a true elder among them. Waits brings depth to the role, particularly in Act II, when Marty’s own struggles come into sharper focus.

Marty has also introduced an outsider into their circle—his former brother-in-law, Hank, a white man played by Joe Hanrahan. Joe, calls him “Republican” rather than by name – until he doesn’t. Hanrahan’s Hank begins as seemingly meek, which makes his eventual breaking point in Act II all the more striking. And Hanrahan delivers that transformation believably and authentically.

As Gotdamnit, Lawrence Evans delivers one of the best characterizations in this production with a captivating mix of unpredictability and wisdom. Seemingly adrift and struggling with mental illness, he speaks in poetic, fragmented musings, revealing a deep reverence for church and Holy Communion. His reflections on light and darkness—how some people brighten a room while others dim it—add an almost mystical element to the play.

The second act is the strongest of the two. After all the set up in the first act, the second peels away all of the men’s defenses, exposing raw truths and opening the door to deeper honesty. In a way, the entire second act is one long climax, with the revelations and transformations of the characters tightly interwoven in surprising and not-so-surprising ways (if you were paying attention during the first act).

It’s to the credit of Beaty’s script (with more than a little humor) and this production’s fine casting, that a play involving a set of get-off-my-lawn-ers can deliver a satisfying, insight and hopeful (of ambiguous). And none of that would have been achieved without the performances of the male cast.

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Broadway World

THE ST LOUIS PREMIER OF COCNUT CAKE AT THE BLACK REP IS A SWEET SLICE OF THEATRE

by James Lindhorst / February 13, 2025

In the late 1960’s and early 1970s housewives called them a Coffee Klatsch. The stay-at-home spouses would gather at friends' homes to sip coffee, chat, and gossip. About a decade later people began mall walking for exercise. The walkers would gather in food courts post-exercise to gab over their morning joe. Now as the baby boomers have aged, retired people, frequently older men, gather in local fast-food restaurants where the coffee is cheap, and the seating is plentiful. The men, who gather daily, talk about their lives and discuss current events before starting their day.

Melda Beaty’s COCONUT CAKE is set in a local McDonald’s restaurant where four men commune daily over a cup of java. Eddie, Joe, Marty, and Hank gather, play chess, joke, and talk about the alluring cake baking siren who just moved into town. Every day as the men enjoy their coffee, they rush to the window to ogle an attractive, well-dressed young lady sauntering down the street. The mysterious woman always stops and interacts with the town beggar who the men call Gotdammit.

Gotdammnit comes into the McDonalds each day after chatting with the young woman to panhandle and spew his prophet-like religious philosophy. The men placate the eccentric Gotdammit who is oddly observant and knows more about the men than they know of one another. Each one gives the beggar a dollar, some charitably and others begrudgingly, so he can buy a coffee or a sandwich.

Playwright Melda Beaty has created a sophisticated parable with an ensemble of complex characters. Her storytelling convention does something unique that most plays rarely do. In her humorous dramedy, each of the interlinked characters are both a protagonist and an antagonist. She has given each character a distinct arc with an individual dramatic denouement.

Director Geovonday Jones, collaborates with his actors, to bring Beaty’s characters to life with unhampered authenticity. Jones has taken a talky script and created genuine dialogue among the five characters. The colloquial expression between Eddie, Joe, Marty, Hank, and Gotdamnnit is realistic and pragmatic under Jones’ deliberate oversight.

Duane Foster (Eddie), Richard Harris (Joe), Richard E. Waits (Marty), Joe Hanrahan (Hank), and Lawrence Evans (Gotdammit) speak with an intentionality that establishes believable bonds between the characters. The five men give excellent performances that engender audience investment.

Beaty’s dramedy is filled with humor and unexpected secrets. Jones and his cast reel the audience in with their quirky characterizations and their amusing and sobering portrayals. Actor Richard Harris is a standout in a performance that is filled with scenery chewing animated pizazz. Credit Costume Designer Brandin Vaughan for his snazzy choices that match Harris’ flashy portrayal.

Scenic designer Tammy Honesty has created a familiar McDonalds interior with her intentional scenic design. The pendant lighting, stools, tables, chairs, and painted floor are instantly recognizable. Sound designer Alan Phillips and Lighting Designer Tony Anselmo augment the ambiance with cue-timed perfection.

COCONUT CAKE is a character driven play that examines how the choices we make in the short term impacts our long-term wellbeing. It is a superbly constructed play with surprising reveals that are neither illogical nor unexpected. Beaty’s play is packed with immense honesty. Jones and his talented well-rehearsed cast give Beaty’s exceptional script the eloquent staging it deserves.

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Talkin Broadway

by Richard T. Green / May, 2024

Suppose there were a mystery without any detective on hand to solve it. That's how it feels during the first three-quarters of Coconut Cake. But it ends up being a surprisingly enjoyable dramedy at the A.E. Hotchner Studio Theatre at Washington University, as staged by the The St. Louis Black Repertory Theatre. Melda Beaty's play had its "rolling premiere" around the country in 2022. Geovonday Jones directs this new production, magnifying a great humanity on stage.

A highly qualified team of actors plays five older (mostly Black) men who regularly meet for breakfast at a chain restaurant on Chicago's South Side. They rattle around in what seems like a plotless plot, like Chekhov's Three Sisters. But the strength of each character holds it all together, until great secrets are revealed near the final fade-out.

And, perhaps because we don't really know why we're there at all for the first 90 minutes, the whole nature of it reminds me of that broken snow globe at the beginning of "Citizen Kane." The play seems shattered and incomprehensible, until the truth can be unearthed.

And that's a sort of a "Rosebud," in itself, if you know the great Orson Welles movie–a tragedy of youth, revealed here in the searing final moments of Coconut Cake. Meanwhile, a chessboard on stage suggests another kind of structure for this two-hour play (with a 15 minute intermission), as a great cast moves us around on the board of an unconventional story.

The introduction of the splendid cast, one by one, lends a subtle, rising structure to the first act, with nearly every man a bit madder than the one before. We meet the low-key Hank, a white retiree (Joe Hanrahan), and then Eddie (Duane Foster), one of the four Black characters, who's suddenly in need of a divorce lawyer. The rising arc of comedy is seemingly broken by the entrance of Marty (Richard Waits), a peaceful deacon for most of the others in church. But then the final two actors come on, greatly amping up the laughs.

Richard Harris is excellent as the flashy slumlord Joe, and Lawrence Evans is towering as Gotdamnit, a hapless homeless man. Mr. Harris is great as the self-important real estate investor. And Mr. Evans is outstanding as a little man driven mad by life in the streets.

Mr. Evans' greatest moment of tragedy comes when an off-stage character accuses him of cheating at chess (most of the characters here are unseen). Elsewhere, the swaggering Joe's sudden misfortune in act two is so real, in Mr. Harris's performance, that we can't seem to get a single drop of schadenfreude out of it at all. And why do I find that strangely satisfying? Am I finally sick of retribution?

The perfect McDonald's-type set is by Tammy Honesty, with excellent costumes by Brandin Vaughn. The story rises above personal rumination when talk turns to the lack of bank loans and the ubiquity of liquor stores in Black neighborhoods. Then, like a lot of Black theater–and like a lot of good detective stories–a family secret puts everything into cruel focus.

But, happily for us, even that grim revelation is swept aside by a final, heartwarming plot twist.

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Snoop's Theatre Thoughts

SPIRITS TO ENFORCE

by Michelle Kenyon ("Snoop") / February, 2025

The Black Rep’s current production, Melda Beaty’s Coconut Cake, is a character-driven showcase for its performers. It’s almost deceptively simple at first, while ultimately revealing itself to be much more complex as the story plays out. With effective staging and an excellent cast of five, this play holds attention from start to finish with its intriguing tale of aging, regret, conflict, and redemption.

The story has a somewhat unexpected setting–a McDonald’s in Chicago, circa 2010. The fast food restaurant is the setting for a weekly gathering of a group of four men of distinctly different personalities and views of life an relationships. Church deacon Marty (Richard E. Waits) plays chess with Hank (Joe Hanrahan), who was married to Marty’s sister until she died the previous year. Eddie (Duane Foster) seeks out Marty’s help in a conflict with his unseen wife, and Eddie’s longtime friend Joe (Richard Harris)–a real estate developer–stresses about his projects and tenants, and brags about his many relationships with women. The four men swap stories about their lives and about their relationships with women–wives, girlfriends, daughters–even regularly ogling an unseen woman who regularly passes by the McDonald’s every week on her way to work. The fifth member of the cast is a man most of the others refer to as “Gotdamnit”–who appears to not have a permanent home and who they criticize for apparently bothering the woman who passes by. They also trade gossip about one of Joe’s new tenants–a woman who attracts the amorous interests of several men in the area. Through the course of the show, personalities conflicts come to the forefront and long-held secrets are revealed, as some characters are forced to reckon with past regrets and present conflicts.

I don’t want to give away too much, because the gradual unfolding of this story is part of what makes it so powerful. The performances are especially strong from all the players, with Waits and Foster in memorable turns as the “voice of reason” Marty and the conflicted Eddie. Harris, as the outspoken Joe, and Hanrahan as the more softspoken Hank, are also excellent, and Evans is a revelation as the mysterious “Gotdamnit”, whose cryptic messages about life and chess prove to mean more than they first seem to. It’s a first-rate ensemble, well directed and paced by director Geovonday Jones, bringing out every ounce of humor and drama in the intriguing, if possibly a little overlong, script.

The set by Tammy Honesty is an effective representation of the seating area of a McDonald’s restaurant, which works as a suitable background for the action of the play. Tony Anselmo’s lighting adds a convincing sense of realism and occasional mystery to the action, and there’s also excellent work from Alan Phillips on sound. Brandin Vaughn’s costumes are also strong, suiting the characters and the time period well.

I didn’t entirely know what to expect when going into this show, and it has turned out to be a welcome surprise. With a strong message and palpable sense of drama balanced with humor, this is a memorable look at these five characters’ struggles, conflicts, and aspirations. It’s another example of excellence from one of St. Louis’s most consistently strong theatre companies.

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PopLifeStl

by Lynn Venhaus / February, 2025

Four retired guys sitting around talking and drinking coffee at a Chicago McDonald’s is intriguing food for thought –a delectable slice-of-life scenario that immediately draws us in to the play “Coconut Cake.”

Playwright Melda Beaty’s flair for dialogue, humor and seamlessly integrating social commentary in her dramedy is irresistible in a compelling and thoughtful presentation in The Black Rep’s intimate A.E. Hotchner Studio Theatre at Washington University.

Because of the caliber of its five-male cast, this character-driven work makes a swift and memorable connection. Their nimble delivery and interactions under the skilled direction of Geovonday Jones enhances their personal relationships as their struggles are revealed over the course of the two-act 2-hour show.

As they explore issues of manhood, racism, mental health and offer advice over games of chess, they show genuine affection — and aggravation — with each other but offer convincing immersive characterizations and realistic camaraderie. It’s set in the summer of 2010.

A fifth character, an unhoused man they call Gotdamnit, interrupts their mornings asking for money and offering his philosophical and spiritual words of wisdom. He’s considered a pest, but there is a surprising backstory and as suspected, more to the guy than his appearance indicates. Lawrence Evans is riveting as a marginalized man.

While the women in their lives are discussed, not seen, vivid portraits of the female characters emerge as they factor into the men’s disparate demeanors. Two characters in particular – a classy, attractive woman that has caught their eye, whom they watch as she walks to work from the Mickey D’s window, and property owner Joe’s mysterious new tenant, Ms. Brulee, who is a baker that makes a divine coconut cake, which happens to be Eddie’s nostalgic childhood favorite.

Eddie Lee, a handyman, is the most agitated guy – upset about his wife’s escalating threatening behavior and discloses personal details about his troubled marriage. Everyone knows he has not been faithful, and that complicates matters. Duane Foster is strong as a guy whose life is falling apart but he’s not taking responsibility for the reasons why.

Marty is often the voice of reason, and his faith has kept him grounded. He’s a deacon in his church and devoted to his family, friends and congregation. As Marty, Richard Waits is firm, but measured, in the advice he gives, and it’s not always welcome.

The characters show different sides of them as husbands, fathers, sons and friends. Their individual stories mesh well, and the play offers unexpected twists and turns that add poignancy.

Each man has a significant emotional journey, and their textured portrayals give us richer story arcs as they bring up cherished memories and confide secrets.

Marty has brought along his brother-in-law Hank, a white guy who was married to his sister, who died a year ago. As played warmly by Joe Hanrahan, the widowed Hank is lonely and comes along for companionship and something to do. He’s learning chess, and he beams talking about his family, as his daughters and granddaughters try to keep him busy.

The outspoken Joe likes to needle Hank, calling him “Republican,” and increases his pot shots and cruel jabs. Richard Harris is a feisty live wire as the loud, swaggering Joe, a flashy blowhard who brags about his money and conquests. He’s never married but has a couple baby mamas.

As the very opinionated Joe, Harris can change his mood quickly. His accusations get heated and personal, especially if the other guys give him some lip about his boasts. His colorful wardrobe, often referred to as ‘fly’ in urban slang, is an indicator of his perceived status (kudos to costume designer Brandin Vaughn for the stylin’ attire).

Because Joe’s disposition can turn on a dime, his pointed barbs take on a hostile, accusatory tone in the second act, after he endures some setbacks.

All accomplished actors, the five bring nuance and shades of gray to our assumptions and give us deeper insight into these complicated men. They eventually must grapple with the consequences of their choices during their lifetimes.

Scenic designer Tammy Honesty has presented elements of a typical nook at a 2010-era McDonald’s, well-lit by designer Tony Anselmo, that allows Jones to move the action to wherever the guys are sitting.

When Joe struts in, he commands attention by seemingly holding court. Eddie is too restless to sit down most of the time, and Marty and Hank are often hunched over their chess board.

Sound designer Alan Phillips incorporated people chattering at times and assembled an appealing soundtrack of catchy pop hits. Christian Kitchens was an assured technical director, and Mikhail Lynn provided the minimal props.

This isn’t the first time The Black Rep has presented the play, because during the pandemic in September 2020, they made a virtual Zoom reading available from The Ensemble Theatre in Houston, which featured founder Ron Himes as a major character, Eddie Lee.

In 2022, Beaty received the second annual Sylvia Sprinkle-Hamlin Rolling Premiere Award by the International Black Theatre Festival. Because of that, this play is being produced by five theaters, including the Black Rep. It is a welcome return.

With its engaging cast, a captivating funny-sad bittersweet narrative, and noteworthy technical know-how, “Coconut Cake” is a satisfying production to savor.

(At intermission, a coconut cream cheese pound cake is available for purchase too, along with other snacks. Just sayin’, if you get a hankering for a sweet treat.)