Set in a small town diner, “Miss Hope’s” is an American microcosm- a tale about hopes and wishes Americans harbor. Since we all have dreams, the performance is definitely easy to relate to. The characters are so recognizable in your everyday life. The setting is so brilliantly done that by watching the show you combine artistic enjoyment with the catharsis of thinking about your own dreams, accomplishments and failures.
A show made of three short plays by three different playwrights, Alisha Silver (Act I), Joseph Samuel Wright (Act II) and Jack Karp (Act III), “Miss Hope’s” is tied together by Bill Clinton’s, George Bush’s and Barack Obama’s speeches. While the action is going on, the audience hears what the presidents say and how the characters react. Some of them are longing for a change, while others don’t care or have given up on their dreams. The diversity of characters shows us representatives of restaurant staff, wealthy and well-traveled elite, senior citizens, high school and college students and children of immigrants who grew up Americanized and nevertheless, due to the fact that they don’t look like the majority, are perceived as foreigners in the country they were born in. At “Miss Hope’s” diner they all blend together, some driven by the necessity to make money, and some hungry for food, or human company, or both.
Remaining truthful to the atmosphere of a diner, the actors do a great job when it comes to putting a restaurant on stage. Time never stops when one character says his or her monologue. Customers come and go, and the waitress on duty never forgets to charge them and put the money into a massive, old- fashioned register, which makes a bell-like noise, sometimes tactlessly interrupting the customers’ conversations. Also, when your attention is concentrated on the speaking character, look away and you will see that a server is taking the order, muted, so that you won’t be distracted by what she says or what the customer replies. In other words, the setting never feels forced or unnatural. You do feel like you are in a real diner, hungry for those french fries that are being served at the table in the front.
Due to “Miss Hope’s” location, one of the themes of the show is life in a small town, where everyone knows their neighbors and everything about their “private” lives. A place like this is good for someone who needs stability, but not the accomplishment of their ambitious goals. A good example is the waitress from Act III (Stephanie Heitman), who saves money for the bus ride to New York where she hopes to become a famous actress. She is even ready to sell her body to a movie producer if it helps her to get into show business. On the other hand, there is this girl, Addison (Madison Comerzan), in Act I, who has just come back home, “for a break.” In fact, she is a failed big city singer, she brings her shattered dreams back to her hometown, precisely to the diner she says she used to work at.
Seeing that having our dreams come true often costs us a lot, we don’t judge the waitresses who gave up on their ambitions and stayed working at “Miss Hope’s,” like Ava (Katherine Barron). She has an affair with a busboy (Dustin Kerns), who is much younger than she is, and she advises her lover not to get stuck at the diner and find a better future for himself. This brings out another theme of the performance: working in restaurants. A good job for youngsters pulling themselves through college, it is never a job one aspires to have. Being a waitress or a busboy is often perceived as a temporary way of earning a buck. At the same time, there are these people who get too comfortable working for tips and never leave their restaurant or diner. They often feel like their life was wasted and they could have done something better had they left for a bigger city where their dreams would definitely come true. And still, they will never accept that they have failed; they excuse themselves in any possible way, a part of human nature, believable and touching.
Of all cast members, the cook from Act III (Fidel Vicioso) is the most memorable. His charming Latino accent and anger towards the customer, an old man (Michael Karp), who doesn’t care to go home at closing time and keeps ordering coffee refills. The old man is the only character who goes from one act to another, simply because he stays at the diner all day long drinking coffee and writing down thoughts and sayings he wants to make a book out of. He calls the cook by all the Spanish names he knows: Jose, Carlos, Juan, etc, and repeats that the USA is a good country for immigrants like him. The cook replies that he was born in Los Angeles, and is just about as much American as the old man himself, which we don’t fully believe because of how strong his accent is. But nevertheless, we do realize that the old man speaks up the stereotypes Americans have about Hispanics: that they come and stay in this country illegally, are afraid of immigration and send their earnings back home to support their families. What else would “Jose” do at “Miss Hope’s?”
The most fascinating thing the audience sees is that no matter how much the cook wants to get rid of the customer and how much the old man refuses to go home, they will make peace in the end, and the next day it will be the same story all over again. It’s the circle of life, “Miss Hope’s,” a slice of reality we encounter on every corner wherever we go, truthfully portrays. There is this waitress from a small Southern town who works in an New York City restaurant and takes acting classes when off duty. You probably notice her accent but know nothing about her, even though she serves you coffee every morning. But if you think about it, like you, she has something to strive for, something that brings meaning to life. Watching “Miss Hope’s,” you surely recall that waitress and value her more.
Leave a Reply