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“When i eat this, I am young,” says Lucien (Michael Potts), a gentle hospice-care worker, as he gratefully samples food that has been given to him by an intense, depressive chef named Ray (The Mentalist's Tim Kang). That line is the essence of Julia Cho’s Aubergine, and the playwright prepares her theme in multiple variations: raw, steamed, cut with an unusual flavor, frothed into foam. One by one, in direct-address monologues, the characters share food-related memories that connect them to their childhoods and their parents; these speeches play off the main story, in which Ray must tend to his terminally ill Korean-American father (Stephen Park), who can’t eat anymore and never cared much for eating anyhow.
Cho’s concept is savory enough to sustain the audience for most of the play, which includes amusing passages of translation involving Ray’s girlfriend (Sue Jean Kim) and his uncle (Joseph Steven Yang), who speaks no English. But the focus on sense and memory gets repetitious, and much of the play is lumpy: Flashbacks seem horned in, the denouement stumbles, and the writing becomes explanatory. Depending on your taste, the play’s dusting of magical realism—it concerns Ray’s gifts with food—may give Aubergine a pleasant zest. To me, it felt like the showy seasoning of a chef who doesn’t trust her ingredients.
Playwrights Horizons (Off Broadway). By Julia Cho. Directed by Kate Whoriskey. With Tim Kang. Running time: 2hrs 10mins. One intermission. Through Oct 2. Click here for full venue and ticket information.
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