The first thing you see when you enter the theatre is the set. The set consists of a kitchen that can be found in any modern home.
“Rinse, Repeat” written by and starring Domenica Feraud is set in the kitchen as Rachel and her mother Joan figure out their relationship to food.
The play opens with Rachel (Domenica Feraud) returning home after four months away. She’s a law student at Yale. However, she isn’t coming home for vacation, Rachel has been an at in patient treatment center recovering from anorexia.
Rachel is home for a trial weekend to see if she is ready to be released from the treatment center. Her parents Joan (Florencia Lozano) and Peter (Michael Hayden) are concerned for their daughter, but are at odds about how to treat her.
They fail to see how they affect their daughter’s relationship to food. Joan eats little and is incredibly thin.
Peter does all the cooking to ensure that his daughter hits her calorie count at every meal. He does nothing, however, to ensure that his wife is eating. Rachel sees this and finds it difficult to eat when her mother isn’t being held to the same standards.
Adding to Rachel’s stress is her fear of disappointing her mother. Joan strives for perfection and while Rachel dreams of being a poet, she’s attending law school because that’s what her mother wants.
The only one who truly seems to understand Rachel is her younger brother Brody (Jake Ryan Lozano). He is angry at Rachel for almost killing herself and is closed off to her presence at first.
Rachel’s poems are oddly read by her brother throughout the play. This is really the only complaint I have as the play is fully engaging and the characters are fully fleshed out.
This play deals with the cycle that many face, but are unable to escape. A parent has an unhealthy relationship with food and unwittingly passes it on to their child and so on and so forth until someone decides they want to break free and in this play, you want Rachel to break free.
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