Zorana Sadiq stars as cooking-show host Bette in the play that she also wrote, Comfort Food. She cooks waffles in real time, filling the intimate studio at Crow’s Theatre in Toronto with the scents of cinnamon and batter.Dahlia Katz/Crow’s Theatre
Title: Comfort Food
Written by: Zorana Sadiq
Performed by: Zorana Sadiq and Noah Grittani
Director: Mitchell Cushman
Company: Crow’s Theatre in association with Zorana Sadiq
Venue: Crow’s Theatre
City: Toronto
Year: Until June 8, 2025
Parenting teenagers has always been hard.
But I think most would agree that the proliferation of the internet has made that already-herculean task even harder: Kids these days have phones, Discord accounts and TikTok profiles. They have a language all their own, syntax peppered with words such as “skibidi” and “rizz.” Their politics, too, are influenced by red-hot online culture wars – today’s teenagers feel things deeply.
As one of the older members of Gen Z, I have some sympathy for the young adults who lost crucial chunks of their adolescence to the pandemic. And in her own way, so does mom Bette, the host of the eponymous cooking show in Comfort Food, writer and actor Zorana Sadiq’s inconsistent yet alluring new play about family, nourishment and the seductive whirlpool of online fame.
When we meet Bette, she’s on TV, sharing a family-friendly recipe for waffles. (Sadiq cooks the confections in real time, filling the intimate studio theatre with the aromas of cinnamon and batter.) She makes two plates: One waffle, topped with sophisticated crème fraîche, is drenched in vinegary berry coulis, and the other dons a chocolate chip smiley face bathed in syrup. Kids prefer uncomplicated breakfasts, she says.
In the play, Bette suggests her content-creator son Kit, played by Noah Grittani, appear as a guest on her show and is surprised by his enthusiasm to join in.Dahlia Katz/Crow’s Theatre
Soon enough, we meet her teenage son Kit (Noah Grittani), who spends hours each day on Discord, chatting with strangers about climate change and society’s complicity in rising temperatures and sea levels. When Bette suggests Kit, a budding content creator, appear as a guest on her show – she could use a ratings boost, and her producers have decided it’s time for Comfort Food to embrace a live format – she’s surprised by his enthusiasm for the gig.
Then, the Incident happens, and Bette’s daytime TV empire starts to crack. The beleaguered chef gets her ratings jump, Kit gets a platform to air his grievances with the modern world, and all at once, Comfort Food finds itself rebranded into an agora for all things viral – a televised platform for the disruptors, influencers and provocateurs who keep the wheels of the internet spinning. (People who resemble, in more ways than one, Bette’s troubled son.)
Bette’s relationship with sourdough bread provides some humour as her son Kit aims for virality to promote a greener Earth.Dahlia Katz/Crow’s Theatre
Sadiq’s play taps into the zeitgeist of the mid-2020s and twists, asking the same questions about parenthood and online safety as TV shows such as Adolescence and The Social Dilemma, but coming up with different answers. As Kit crusades toward virality in service of a greener Earth, he becomes something of a chameleon – if you squint, he might remind you of the resident Gen Z boy in your own life.
But that ubiquity sometimes makes Kit seem a touch clichéd and underwritten, particularly in contrast to Bette, who Sadiq brings to life with gorgeous care and nuance. Sadiq’s play prescribes compelling, dramaturgically juicy actions to Bette – a moment that sees her literally consume a piece of her son is one of Comfort Food‘s highlights. Bette’s crusty relationship with sourdough bread, too, is funny, significant and well-executed by Sadiq and director Mitchell Cushman.
By appearing on Bette’s TV show, Kit gets a platform to air his grievances with the modern world.Dahlia Katz/Crow’s Theatre
Grittani tries his best to capture Kit’s inner life, and his shared scenes with Sadiq ring with truth. But there’s a gaping remove between Sadiq’s portrait of the internet and the real, dripping sites that have forever shaped how children today process the world around them, and Kit’s characterization suffers for that gap. In Max Wolf Friedlich’s Job, the “dark web” is, quite accurately, a terrifying chasm of humanity’s worst traits, difficult to access without special software and a strong stomach. In Comfort Food, the “dark web” is a fairly tame Google Drive link. It’s a small terminology quibble, but one that demonstrates Comfort Food’s somewhat misplaced stakes.
That said, Sim Suzer’s tech-savvy set is a stunner, with stylish kitchen flourishes and sliding doors that reveal Kit’s online lair. Tori Morrison’s video design, too, pads Comfort Food’s walls with digital intrigue, alongside Echo Zhou’s moody lighting.
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Comfort Food finishes off Crow’s Theatre’s 2024-25 season with a socially resonant garnish, and in a way, the play perfectly synthesizes this year’s roster of plays, from Wights’ somewhat muddy critique of the American intelligentsia, to Flex’s exploration of teenage perseverance through hard times, to Dinner with the Duchess’ damning portrait of a middle-aged celebrity. Those ideas come to a simmering head here – but the play’s anti-climax unfortunately keeps them from boiling over.
There’s a lot to like in Sadiq’s play, and parents in particular will leave the theatre with something to gnaw on. But Comfort Food could use a few more minutes in the oven – and a few more drafts before it tours to other kitchens.
