So much more is cooking in Fadwa Faranesh's West Bank kitchen than merely delicious food. The touching new play Food and Fadwa, which opened last week off-Broadway at New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW), is about a loving, resilient Palestinian family coping with life in Bethlehem.
Shana Gold skilfully directs the humorous drama, which mixes family values and the clash of modern versus traditional ways, deftly seasoned with political undertones.
Fadwa (a sensitive, lively portrayal by Lameece Issaq, who also co-wrote the play with Jacob Kader) is a 30-something, single, Christian Palestinian woman caring for her increasingly demented father, Baba (Laith Nakli).
To entertain herself, Fadwa enacts episodes of her own TV cooking show, while preparing traditional food for her younger sister's wedding.
As she puts together timeless dishes such as baba ghanoush and tabbouleh, "authentic and true to the culture from which they come", Fadwa provides a brisk blend of food preparation tips, stories about the symbolism of the ingredients and increasingly vehement commentary about the gathering family members.
Food and Fadwa melds the fight a Palestinian family wages to hold on to its traditions with its need to celebrate love, joy and hope. It sets a high level of achievement as the first co-production between NYTW and the Noor Theatre Company, an Arab-American collective now in residence in New York. * AP
