By Jean-Claude Van Itallie
Wayland Baptist University
October 1999

Van Itallie says that this is a play "about a woman violated in her home by ever-accumulating quantities of cake," and it is, at least that is the story at the surface. A man enters a woman's house. He begins tempting her with cake. She begins to indulge. He offers her more. She begins to lose control. The action continues like this up to what Van Itallie titles the "Monster Tableau," Here, the man force-feeds her the cake. The story is really a disturbing allegory for greed and materialism in America. That is the story I was telling. The final moments of the show finds the woman on the phone ordering an ever-increasing number of cakes. Finally, she realizes what has been happening to her. She drops the phone, the lights go black, and all the audience hears is the woman screaming "rape."

This is easily the most disturbing of my projects. What appealed to me were the allegorical nature of the piece and the use of comedy as a means of ensnaring an audience. At one point, a voice from her T.V. tells her, "You're beautiful, you're young. Your husband earns well. You have pretty children." The situation is so absurd that the audience cannot help but get wrapped up in the odd comedy. My goal was to keep the audience laughing for as long as I could while slowly allowing the tension to build towards the tableau and the woman's final moment of recognition.

Audience reception to this piece was mixed. Many saw it exactly for what it was, an allegorical story displaying the perils of materialism, but some were confused. One audience member congratulated me on a "nice show about bulimia." This bothered me. I began analyzing the show, searching for places to clarify. Amazingly, what seemed to do the trick was placing an American flag magnet on the refrigerator. Suddenly, the subsequent audiences seemed to comprehend the production's message completely. The simple addition of a recognizable sign of patriotism cleared up the apparent confusion.

Photos by Rebekah Wilkins-Pepiton