Arriving at a disquieting time in Canada-U.S. relations, Theatre Aquarius and the Grand Theatre’s co-production of Waitress is as American as its prominently featured rainbow Stars and Stripes flag. Which is to say it’s rather complicated.
Adapted from the Adrienne Shelley film of the same name, with songs by Sarah Bareilles and a book by Jessie Nelson, the 2016 musical communicates an affectionate yet critical attitude toward small-town America.
Waitress directly evokes the first lines of the Declaration of Independence, and that’s what I think the show is about: the meaning of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” as it relates to its three main female characters, who navigate their aspirations against the ostensibly reassuring conformist status quo of “happy enough.” The plot starts rolling when Jenna (Julia McLellan), a waitress and baker at a pie shop, discovers she’s pregnant. She receives emotional support from her coworkers Becky (Stacey Kay) and Dawn (Elysia Cruz), who seem excited, but Jenna lacks positive sentiment toward the prospect.
The pregnancy puts Jenna’s life in disarray. She considers leaving her abusive husband, Earl (Lawrence Libor), and starts an affair with her new doctor, the fresh-in-town and married Doctor Pomatter (Kamyar Pazandeh). McLellan and Pazandeh have a delightfully awkward chemistry, with Pomatter flitting between an authoritative doctor voice and the rambling apologies of an out-of-his-depth dork. The two get a love song (“Bad Idea”) where they nervously circle one another in a push-pull of tension, before succumbing and barreling past their better instincts to embrace their need for each other.
The sequence pivots between graceful dancing (choreographed by Genny Sermonia) and believable nervousness in the pair’s acting. Later, a reprise of the song includes the other characters, which introduces the other two women’s romantic pursuits of happiness. Becky gets together with the store’s manager Cal (Lee Siegel), and Dawn forms a relationship with Ogie (Tyler Pearse).
The latter pair share a love of Revolutionary War reenactments and poetry, and conclude “Bad Idea” by striking a painterly pose holding the aforementioned Pride/American flag (which has been a feature of many recent Waitress productions). Despite this being a heterosexual couple, the two communicate a kind of manically queer energy that makes the flag feel appropriate — from their unabashed weirdness as a couple to Ogie’s sweetly affectionate hugs and kisses for Doctor Pomatter.
That flag, for me, became the skeleton key to the whole show. Through it, Waitress expresses nostalgic Americana but with a contemporary critical spin. Musically, it mines traditions beyond the usual Broadway musical repertoire, with a number of beautifully sung variations on the paradigmatic vocabulary of 20th-century pop music: slide guitar-inflected country (“Take It From an Old Man” and “You Matter to Me”), doo-wop drum fills (“I Love You Like a Table”), and funk keyboard riffs (“I Didn’t Plan It”).
Under Rachel Peake’s direction, McLellan plays Jenna with an equal measure of sunny optimism and depressive cynicism. She’s clearly a woman who feels beaten down by the world, but who manages to carry herself with the hopes of better days ahead in songs like “What Baking Can Do.” During this number, the memory of her mother is rendered literal on stage, which becomes both a source of inspiration and a manifestation of her regrets.
As comic relief, Cruz’s interpretation of Dawn is a walking panic attack, complete with a perpetual exuberance that’s always endearing and never mocking. Cruz’s obvious high point is the solo number “When He Sees Me,” in which she dances with anxious jitters, weaving between the male backing dancers while voicing all the possible things that could go wrong if Dawn tries dating — but where her biggest fear seems to be the chance that she might find someone she really loves. Becky has less of an arc than the other two central female characters, but Kay conveys the sharp aggression of a woman who has given up wanting anything more. Her cartoony Western verbal duels with Cal are some of the funniest moments in the show.
The lighting, designed by Michelle Ramsay, also embraces Americana as an aesthetic. Its colour choices (red and blue) obviously mirror the colours of the American flag, but they’re also the dominant colour schemes of small-town diner signage; the show adds to this aesthetic by prominently featuring a rectangular neon frame around the Grand’s Spriet Stage.
But this isn’t just an oldies station. Waitress also scorns the conventional valorization of the heterosexual romantic dyad, opting instead for something closer to sisterly compassion; it features some distinctly queer undertones, even though there isn’t an out gay character on stage. In addition to Ogie’s sweetly flirtatious affection for Dr. Pomatter, there’s Cal’s offstage lesbian wife. When questioned why that relationship is still ongoing, Becky snaps: “What kind of man would leave his wife just because she’s gay?” This comes off as more affectionate than sharp, and openly affirms her queerness. It felt warming at a moment when the U.S. government has been attacking the LGBT, and particularly trans, communities. For me, the message is that other ways of being beyond the dominant heteronormative landscape are possible.
That being said, I do have reservations about the ending, which feels perfunctory and a bit too sudden, rather than fully earned. During the conclusion, I also had to wonder if my previously breathless love of the feminism and queerness of the production was entirely merited, given that it can just as easily be read as a musical about the life-altering power of heterosexual motherhood. Is the rainbow flag merely an adornment of a heterosexual story? I’m not sure, and I don’t know if the script is either.
Even given these misgivings about elements of the existing material, I didn’t find that Waitress’ retro charms ever screamed retrograde. The show is fascinating for its attempt to harness the pleasures of the Broadway musical form, while casting an awkward-stepping jaundiced eye at fantasies of American identity. Despite its sometimes contradictory ingredients, this pie comes out sweet.
Waitress runs at the Grand Theatre in London until April 12, and at Theatre Aquarius in Hamilton from April 30 to May 17.
Gwen Caughell is a participant in What Writing Can Do: The 2025 Musical Theatre Critics Lab, a collaboration between Theatre Aquarius’ National Centre for New Musicals, the Grand Theatre, and Intermission.
WRITTEN BY
Gwen Caughell
Gwen Caughell (she/her) is a critic, playwright, and short story writer who lives in London, Ontario. She loves any work that is queer, difficult, or strange. Her (ever-changing) favourite writers/critics (at the moment!) are Sarah Schulman, Mary Gaitskill, James McCourt, Paula Vogel, Tony Kushner, Robin Wood, D.A. Miller, and Lauren Berlant.
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