The smells, sounds and setting of “Stir” make it stand out amongst other plays, said playwright and actor Joel Perez.
“I think what's exciting is the kind of four dimensional experience where we're going to be cooking and you're going to smell the onions and the garlic and the peppers,” Perez said. “And the audience I hope will feel a little hungry by the end of the show.”
Perez and Melinda Lopez co-wrote the piece and are the main characters in the play — siblings Henry and Mariana.
Lopez said the play was a product of COVID-19-related shutdowns. It originally premiered on the East Coast in a virtual setting in 2021.
“We created a fictional universe where Henry and Mariana are cooking over Zoom to honor their mother,” Lopez said. “Mariana who has the recipe and Henry who wants to learn the recipe — and we made a Zoom play and then we thought this could work in person.”
Now “Stir” gets a proper stage for its world premiere in the Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre at the Old Globe.
“The play is really about family. And it's about family grappling with the loss of a loved one,” said director Marcela Lorca.
In the play, Henry and Mariana are separated by distance and circumstance, but meet to share their late mother’s favorite black bean recipe. Meanwhile, her ashes await a final resting place.
“Over the course of us cooking together live, you realize why Henry actually concocted this plan — to do something a little impulsive, and I'll leave it at that,” Perez said while laughing.
Lopez said the play emphasizes ritual, in this case cooking. She said rituals like that keeps people grounded, together and makes our lives sacred.
“We all know what it was like to experience family at a distance over Zoom when we couldn't get in the room, and the play tries to navigate that separation and longing for connection,” Lopez said.
The play is set during the pandemic and recreates a sense of distance in a unique stage setup featuring a real working kitchen.
“We have a kitchen that has two counters. And these counters can rotate and move,” Lorca said. “We create this illusion that this brother and sister are in separate spaces cooking, but they can also fluidly invade each other's space.”
Perez said much of the plot is drawn from the playwrights’ experiences with mourning during the pandemic and his own grandmother’s passing.
“She was the kind of cook who never followed a recipe. She just sort of was super intuitive but it always tasted the same,” Perez said. “We've lost that. And it will never come back. And there's something so sad but also so special about how food can make us feel and it brings you right back to a memory.”
In “Stir,” the mother’s black bean recipe starts as a simple project, but it leads to a surprising connection as the siblings reminisce and reveal secrets of their own.
While the play deals with the loss of a loved one, it's still a comedy that's meant to be funny and moving.
“It's that closeness between the siblings and the kind of language that they use, where they can laugh at things that are poignant and things that are hard,” Lorca said. “It's a very intimate play so I think that allows for a lot of humor to live.”
Lopez and Perez have an almost decade-old bond which plays out like siblings both on and off the stage.
“We have a total sibling-like banter, we like each other,” Lopez said. “We just have fun together. I really admire Joel’s artistic career and he's been in some of my plays.”
The play also focuses on Latino identity in America, in roles that defy stereotypes.
Yet its message is universal for people of all cultures — breaking bread with loved ones after a long time apart.
“Sure you're not Cuban, but I'm sure there's some sort of food that you remember fondly as a child that your parent, or your grandparent or loved one used to make,” Perez said. “I hope it reminds people to honor that legacy, honor those memories.”
Lorca agrees. She hopes its message impacts the audience beyond the set.
“To reflect on their own family and their own loved ones and what's important in life — which is to share love, be kind to one another and to communicate honestly with one another,” Lorca said.
As for the food, it's probably just for show. But the recipe is in the program for people who want to try and cook the beans themselves.
For those interested in family, food, and healing, performances for the four-week play run May 4-26.
