“A multi-sensory journey exploring a migrants’ past – building upon a strong premise, the show’s execution failed to realize its full weight. “
The sight of a kitchen counter and the smell of food—this is how the show begins. Then, the smell of herbs, of onions in hot oil, and of soup—the smell of a faraway family, the smell of home. My English Persian Kitchen, written by Hannah Khalil based on the original story of Atoosa Sepehr, is a show built upon and told through smell. In her private kitchen, the woman on stage tells us a story of migration, of running away, and of finding a new home—a journey of her own.
The show is built upon a very strong premise: it explores the journey of migration and the sense of home through food, a language that is both universal and highly personal at the same time. All the sensory elements in the show strikes a perfect balance. The constant changing of the smell makes the black box theatre a completely new space—a space of warmth, intimacy, and empathy. The lighting does a fantastic job of both creating beautiful and clean imagery and building different worlds on stage, threading scenes of the past and memory into the present. The sound design works perfectly with the lighting, offering a highly immersive experience.
Like many solo shows, My English Persian Kitchen is told through the performer’s narration—a story that develops both in the present, in the kitchen, and through flashbacks from the past, exploring present displacement through past incidents. This is a show set in a highly personal space and is about a highly personal story. However, for my taste, the performance style, being calm, composed, and even indifferent, disharmonizes itself from such an intimate setting. Rather than embodying the stories and taking the audience through her journey, the story feels narrated from a distance. Isabella Nefar’s performance is clean and confident and her words extremely clear. She successfully commanded the full house with her solo presence on stage. Yet her narration, being carefully curated, presents the same tone and same pace throughout the entire show. Even at moments of past horrors, her performance feels highly composed, which was at adds with the urgency within the scenes. As a result, as all the design and sensory elements pull the audience in, the narration creates distance from the story; as the setting invites intimacy, the performance presents composure and paced speeches.
While the intention and the offering are highly generous from the creators—from sharing live-cooked food to highly personal stories—the piece itself needs a significant trim. The story is laid out for the audience in the very first 20 minutes, and the latter content is mostly flashbacks to the same past and present, waiting for the food to be cooked. The piece lands on a vital moment in which the character reveals that her parents, for whom the food is prepared for, are not able to be with her in London. The act of cooking, then, becomes an act of creating community for oneself and remembering the past when you’re away. However, the structure of the storytelling failed to make the message realized to its full weight.