Shapeless and facile: The Hot Wing King, at the Dorfman Theatre, reviewed

Our subsidised theatres often import shows from the US without asking whether our theatrical tastes align with America’s. The latest arrival, The Hot Wing King, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning play about unhealthy eating. The production opens in a luxury house in Memphis, occupied, rather strangely, by four gay men who dress gracelessly in cheap, flashy designer gear. They behave like overgrown babies and spend their time leaping about the place, bickering and bantering, singing songs, performing dance moves and exchanging cuddles.

This cameo repeats the caricature of the foolish African crook. Why is the Globe perpetuating racial bigotry?

One of the four man-babies wears a business suit and calls himself ‘a manager’ but the others appear to be unemployable. Yet they’re affluent. Their house is attractively decorated and it boasts a piano and a state-of-the-art kitchen equipped with seven hot plates, a double air-fryer and a portable grill. This is important because cookery is the show’s main focus and the central character, Cordell, is a charmless amateur chef who wants to win a catering competition.

Junk food is his speciality and he considers himself an expert in chicken. To impress the judges, he plans to garnish his deep-fried nuggets with a delicious chilli sauce whose recipe has been in his family since 1808. The date is even tattooed on his forearm to prompt his memory. Yet, for unexplained reasons, he can’t remember how the sauce is made. Even more puzzlingly, he orders one of his man-baby pals to take charge of the seasoning. Gosh. Is something going to go wrong with the sauce?

This shapeless, facile drama isn’t really a show but a cookery demonstration hosted by a quartet of witless buffoons trying to be funny and occasionally breaking character to perform karaoke routines. They also play indoor basketball, or they weep and howl about the woes of their sexuality and other emotional matters. But their main interest is cooking. The sauce bubbles away on a hot plate and the theatre fills with the scent of condemned meat being barbecued live on stage. Vegetarians may not welcome the reek. It’s like being trapped on the Tube next to a student eating dog food.

The second half centres on the over-peppery garnish which is forced into the mouth of an unsuspecting victim. While he squeals in agony, he’s mocked and humiliated by the man-babies. That’s the highlight of the drama. As for Cordell’s catering competition – well, when the prizes are handed out, Cordell learns that winning isn’t as important as friendship. Seriously, that’s the level of narrative and psychological inventiveness here.

This is a clown show and it may appeal to schoolchildren who eat takeaways but it can’t possibly interest an adult audience. How did it reach the National? Perhaps the artistic director’s office was besieged by throngs of clamouring playgoers desperate to see a camp stage show about gay chefs in Tennessee. Or perhaps not. Press night lasted 188 minutes. Too long for a comedy. Far too long for a pre-teens cookery programme.

The Globe’s campaign against Shakespeare continues with The Taming of the Shrew. Dominating the stage is a vast white model of a disembowelled teddy bear whose eviscerated guts form a hole through which the actors come and go. Not sure what that means. The director, Jude Christian, clearly regards the play as unworthy of serious scrutiny or intelligent discussion and he treats it like an acid trip or a freak show set in a kindergarten.

The actors wear rouged cheeks and noses, like figures in a doll’s house, and some of them carry dummies as alter egos. It must be annoying for an actor to land a role at the Globe only to find that he has to perform with a puppet on his arm. This is the fate of Andrew Leung who plays Petruchio as a creepy predator. When not encumbered by his puppet, he wears a shiny nylon jacket and a shirt decorated with swirling rainbows. His costume screams ‘BBC TV presenter’, as if it’s a warning sign. Is that deliberate? Possibly not.

The show conceals the fact that Petruchio is an attractive suitor, a renowned war hero, a man of charisma, intelligence and resourcefulness. But he’s a nightmare to live with. That’s the joke. Forcing him to marry the combative and articulate Katharina is supposed to be hilarious. Not here it isn’t.

The atmosphere is humourless, bitter and callow. Thalissa Teixeira (Katharina) sulks her way through the role, all prickly self-regard, and without any hint of charm or fun. She and Petruchio deserve each other. Tyreke Leslie (Tranio) has to pose as his master Lucentio, and for the impersonation he creates a brand new character, ‘the Nigerian prince’. This unShakespearean cameo repeats the tiresome caricature of the foolish African crook, complete with crass gestures and absurd diction. Why is the Globe perpetuating racial bigotry?

In its present guise this wonderful playhouse is worse than a shambles; it’s a national embarrassment.