Food with your play: Belvoir's Food

I’ve got a thing for theatre involving kitchens. Not necessarily sinks, just kitchens; little theatres of life, crucibles of thought and action, meeting places; familial communal spaces. I’d heard good things about Food, playing at Belvoir’s Downstairs theatre – very good things, in fact – and so this review comes from the closing weekend of its (already extended) season, something which only adds to the performance, I think: that it could be as fresh and as moving as it did at the end of its run means it’s a strong well-crafted piece of theatre. It’s about sisters Nancy and Elma who run a takeaway ‘restaurant’ on a highway, somewhere in Australia. Amongst the endless cycle of preparing food, the daily rut of serving the same customers the same thing day after day, comes a stranger, Hakan, a young traveler, who slowly – quickly – manages to bring the two sisters together, turning their world(s) upside-down.