The Kitchen

Play

Writers: Arnold Wesker

Overview

Show Information

Category
Play
Number of Acts
2
First Produced
1957
Genres
Drama
Settings
Period, Unit/Single Set
Time & Place
The kitchen of a busy London restaurant, 1950s
Cast Size
large
Ideal for
Professional Theatre, Regional Theatre, Large Cast
Casting Notes
Mostly male cast
Includes young adult, adult, mature adult, late teen, elderly characters

Synopsis

Arnold Wesker’s groundbreaking play is set in the basement kitchen of the Tivoli, a large and busy London restaurant with a high, frantic turnover of both customers and staff. An international melange of chefs, waitresses and porters set up for the day as they prepare to serve lunch. The pace builds and tempers flare as the cooks butt heads, the waitresses chase their orders, and the beers are downed to get through the day. In the midst of the chaos, Peter, a high-spirited, young German chef carries out a doomed, tumultuous love affair with married English waitress, Monique. When he finally realizes that she will never leave her husband, something in Peter snaps and he destroys the gas leads to the kitchen ovens. Hurt and bewildered by his employee’s actions, restaurant owner Mr Marango is left to wonder what more his workers need in their lives other than employment, money, and food.

The Kitchen was the first British play to dramatize the relentless rhythm and toil of the working day and portray a kind of mechanized hell in which hundreds of meals must be served in a short space of time.

Lead Characters


The Kitchen guide sections