Review: ‘Waitress’ Is a Top-Shelf Production Baked With Heartfelt Conviction

McCoy Rigby Entertainment and La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts couldn’t have planned it any better: their very first production of the 2024-25 season, Waitress, is as satiating as it gets, offering an incredible mélange of sweetness, tenderness, and laughs. The goods are so thoroughly served that if this production were on Broadway, with the same cast and crew, it would be sold out for months ahead at a time.

Desi Oakley returns to the role of Jenna after having traveled the country as the character in the first national tour in 2017-18. This time, Oakley leads the charge of the Waitress SoCal regional premiere, proving it really is a musical-theater gem worthy of being discussed in the same breath as the most impactful musicals of the past decade, such as Dear Evan Hansen, Hadestown and, of course, Hamilton.

Certainly, the reasons start with Jessie Nelson’s sumptuously layered script and Sara Bareilles’s timeless music and lyrics which took Adrienne Shelly’s little known 2007 film starring Keri Russell and turned it into a fan favorite. Another cause stems from the fact that the show is well-aware of what it is and what it’s attempting to get across, which its cast members, La Mirada Theatre’s talent being no exception, hone in on.

The main story arc doesn’t hesitate to get a little deep while the surrounding trappings are more light-hearted. Jenna is a smalltown waitress at Joe’s Pie Diner where her only comforts are her co-worker acquaintances/friends, including supervisor Cal, diner owner Joe himself, and particularly Becky and Dawn. Outside of work, Jenna is stifled by an abusive marriage with dastardly husband Earl whom she, without warning, gets unhappily knocked up by. Disenchanted in her relationship, it is her romantically compatible gynecologist, Dr. Pomatter, and a baking contest — marked by the allure of its $20,000 grand prize — which becomes the panacea Jenna has been looking for to liberate herself and start anew with fresh ingredients.

The message of not settling for an unfulfilling life rings true and proud over Waitress’ two-and-a-half-hour runtime. Director Abbey O’Brien doesn’t waste a solitary moment in making sure each character feels immediately present and authentic. O’Brien’s direction, moreover, interfaces beautifully with Scott Pask’s original set design which evokes both the hospitality of Southern America and the personal uncertainty or despondency that might lurk in a quotidian living room when nobody is looking. Cost n’ Mayor’s choreography, too, is as involved as it gets, inviting a host of mobile pan racks, menus, kitchen utensils, eggs, flour and, indubitably, pies.

Oakley, the headlining star, gives the impression that she was born to play Jenna just as much as Sara Bareilles or Jessie Mueller was. Oakley’s Jenna is amiable but not helplessly pliable; there is an inner strength that persists and yearns to set an example. Through Oakley’s breathtaking and bountiful voice, even the most hard-hearted of observers can’t help but be whisked away by Jenna’s prolific ingenuity, beginning with “What Baking Can Do.”

As the rigorously demanding and villainous Earl, Brian Krinsky skillfully solidifies his part as an antithetical and deplorable figure. Because there is a unanimous rooting against this antagonist deserving of his just desserts, we cling to every one of Oakley’s sustained notes, as Jenna gives herself to the transformative power of vulnerability, the turnpike where courage is seeded, in the self-reflective and palpitations-inducing “She Used to Be Mine.”

Jenna’s fellow kitchen baker/server-support system plays an integral role in her pivot toward self-actualization. This is underscored by Dominique Kent’s robustly portrayed Becky, a reassuringly confident and sometimes sassily sardonic woman who tells it like it is without the sugar-coating. Kent’s Becky is joined by Rianny Vasquez’s tremendously entertaining Dawn, an endearingly anxious woman who attracts the same neurotic energy in the quirkily persistent Ogie (Jared Gertner) — a smart, though socially unconventional, suitor who is equal parts tax auditor, magician, poet, Revolutionary War reenactor, Riverdancer, and apparent opera singer.

As much as there is sonic satisfaction (the consistently gratifying instrumentation is directly attributable to music director Jennifer Lin and her marvelous onstage band) to go with vocal treats in the form of three-part harmonies among Oakley, Kent, and Vasquez (e.g., “Opening Up,” “The Negative,” “A Soft Place to Land”), not to mention the intoxicatingly nuanced “When He Sees Me” soloed by Vasquez, and the powerhouse breakout “I Didn’t Plan It” by Kent, it is the supernatural chemistry of the cast that ensures the aftertaste is as memorable as the first bite. This is partly why Gertner’s Ogie, who doesn’t appear until the tail end of Act I, elicits such immediately strong, rapid-fire roars of laughter in the emboldened “Never Ever Getting Rid of Me” despite his character’s newness. The truth is that the entirety of the cast, no less Gertner, harmoniously intermix like they’ve been performing together for years, not just mere weeks.

Moreover, aiding Jenna’s awakening of new possibilities is Cleavant Derricks who makes for a lovably relatable father figure in Joe, notable for his charmingly unfiltered honesty, and Brian Calì who infallibly epitomizes a caring but firm boss in Cal.

That said, at least on the more intimate front, it is Ben Jacoby’s impetuous Dr. Pomatter whose askew and awkward glances at Jenna — acknowledged uproariously by Dr. Pomatter’s Nurse Norma (a perfectly cast Ashley Támar Davis) — that brings about something more definite. As Jenna’s veritable ticket out as much as the looming contest prize, Jacoby’s Dr. Pomatter is highly engaging and comical in the way he physically communicates his persona’s curiosity which allows Jenna to feel “seen” during an ordeal she is trying to overcome.

Lastly, as a prime example of what a balanced production looks like, Waitress‘ supporting company do more than just act as window dressing; they supplement the sundry scenes they’re in as extensions of Jenna and the leads. The highly dependable Ricky Bulda, Grant Hodges, Johnisa Breault, Ashley Moniz, Michael Bullard, Tayler Mettra, Michael James, along with child actors Annabelle Bergold and Layni Rose Cowden, comprise the devoted ensemble.

In total, La Mirada Theatre’s production of Waitress, with familiar face Desi Oakley showing precisely how it’s done, amounts to deliciously encrusted bites of gut-busting joy (without a trip to the doctor) in parallel with a meaningful emotional release.

The endless pies and their descriptive names are metaphors for the distinct and oftentimes non-identical changes in one’s life. Rarely has there been a show that uses song, humor, and heart so interchangeably to effectively tell its story. In this case, the reason is simple: the acting is just as good as the singing, which is saying a lot for any musical, especially one where the vocals are of the highest caliber.

Cover image caption: Desi Oakley in La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts and McCoy Rigby Entertainment’s production of Waitress at La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts in La Mirada, CA. Photo credit: Jason Niedle/TETHOS

Waitress runs through Sunday, October 13th at La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts. For more information, and to purchase tickets, visit lamiradatheatre.com.