Luisa Sermol and Lizzie Izyumin Photo by Christian Pizzirani

When this bakery shop owner in Winston, North Carolina discovers that her deceased best friend's daughter is returning home from New York to plan her wedding and wants her to bake the cake for the big day, Della is ecstatic–that is, until she meets the other half of the cake-to-be's topping: a woman. It is then that everything she had been taught that is "real" in the "directions" she "worships" as written in her Bible lead her to a heartbreaking conflict involving faith, friendship and frosting–and lead her to say, "No."

While headlines and subsequent court cases of similar refusals in the past several years have sent emotions and accusations flying on both sides of the issue, playwright Bekah Brunstetter has boldly taken a different stand: Lower the temperature, mix in some humanizing of all involved, and sprinkle a bit of rarely found empathy among those in violent disagreement. The final result out of her creative oven, The Cake, is now on stage at City Lights Theater Company in an engaging, thought-provoking, and thoroughly entertaining mix of high drama and laugh-out-loud comedy. There is nothing "off-the-shelf" or "trial-and-error" in the fresh, fervent, and fun ingredients director Lisa Mallette stirs into her delicious ninety-minute production with its Grade A cast and creative team. And the final product is definitely worth Bay Area audiences devouring to its fullest.

With her tabs, sharpies, folders, and multiple bride's magazines in hand, Jen (Lizzie Izyumin) is ready to plan the kind of hometown wedding she and her mother talked about the last couple of months her mom was alive–a "perfect" wedding where "everything matters," to be paid for with the $30K her mother left her for that very purpose. Her intended–Brooklyn-born, aspiring writer Macy (Sundiata Ayinde)–would rather use that money for a dream honeymoon. However, out of love she is reluctantly here tolerating Jen's bubbling excitement in a Southern state Macy only once passed through as a young Black girl on the way to Florida for a family vacation.

When Della realizes that Jen's groom is really a second bride, she apologetically informs Jen that six months from now in October she is totally booked baking lots of apples cake for the fall season. Jen tries to hide her disappointment and embarrassment while Macy's eyes roll, her face hardens, and her fists clasp–all the while she is quickly whisking Jen out the door of the cutesy, pink-and-green bakery with its showcases of decorated cakes (eye-popping creations of scenic designer Ron Gasparinetti and properties designer Karen S. Leonard).

As they lie in bed that night, Jen tries to make the case that Della "has a right to say no if she's not comfortable," while Macy has only one, hard-lined response: "She is wrong." Jen meekly suggests that Macy "just try and be respectful of the people down here," but Macy's quick retort that shows no sign of compromise or change is "I don't respect these people." But "these people" include Jen herself in many ways that still haunt Jen in dreams that too often become nightmares and memories that painfully haunt.

In another bed that same night, Della tries to wrestle with the right and wrong of her decision with her exhausted husband Tim (Tom Gough), a plumber and true son of the conservative-leaning South. Yawning, Tim would much rather talk about the condoms he pulled out of a septic tank that day than about how sweet Jenny has been "corrupted by the liberals up there, sweat, yoga, and all that." Tim assures antsy, fidgeting Della that she is right in not baking the cake because "you can't pick and choose the Bible." And after all, even thinking Jen might love a woman to Tim is flat-out "gross."

But beyond just disappointing a young woman she has known since birth, Della is not sure there is something wrong with Jen, who was dating a nice guy in college, now saying she loves Macy. After all, she tells Tim, "I didn't start liking olives 'til last year–now I cannot get enough of them." And if he thinks Jen's love is "just not natural," well "neither is confectioner's sugar."

Luisa Sermol is beyond-words incredible in the role of the middle-aged, apron-wearing Della with mounds of curly hair rising high above her head and falling down her shoulders. She is on the outside, in love with her life, with smiles and sparkles lighting up her countenance and eyes. And yet, this "no" she has told to Jen–an answer which she knows she must adhere to–is causing her to question a lot in her life that she has too long taken for granted.

The journey she undergoes through separate and increasingly difficult interactions separately with Jen, Macy, and Tim is one we are honored to share with her. She (and of course we) also hear a Voice (unseen Max Tachis) that shocks and challenges her to the core. But the icing on the cake (excuse the pun) is an experiment involving buttercream frosting as she attempts to rediscover her own "normal love" life–an event that is a hilarious and heartwarming moment of theatre never to forget.

At the same time Della is step-by-step re-examining her own life and her own desires and needs, Jen and Macy travel a sometimes rocky road as they try to understand what is set in concrete in their own beliefs and in their relationship and what–if anything–might still be up for discussion and compromise.

As we watch these journeys, how can we as an audience not also be reassessing some of our own deeply felt judgments about people who choose not to ice a cake for a potential customer's wedding just because the couple is the same sex? Meeting Della, getting to know her, and seeing her honest struggles and some willingness to question may be one of the more important encounters many of us in this liberal community of supposed open minds have had recently in live theatre. Kudos and many thanks go to City Lights Theatre Company for bringing Bekah Brunstetter's Della and The Cake into our lives.

The Cake runs through June 8, 2025, at City Lights Theater Company, 529 S. 2nd Street, San Jose CA. For tickets and information, please visit www.cltc.org.