My English Persian Kitchen joins a sweep of culinary-inspired plays taking over London’s stages. Rich in olive oil, crisp caramelised onions, and aromatic dried mint, it’s hard to resist the olfactory appeal of the Soho Theatre’s theatre-food offering, where part of the spectacle is watching ash reshteh (a Persian herb and noodle soup) being whipped up live. But Hannah Khalil’s play is about so much more than dicing onions and adding turmeric.
The production adapts harrowing real events. In 2007, Atoosa Sepehr was forced to flee Iran in the early hours of the morning to escape life-threatening psychological and physical torment at the hands of an abusive husband. London was to be her new home, a place dark and unfamiliar, superbly conjured by the all-black Soho Upstairs auditorium, which feels like a boxy and alienating attic room flat. From this space—symbolically illuminated by the fridge and hanging lamp over the kitchen island, making clear where solace and order are found—an unnamed woman (Isabella Nefar) recounts her experience of trauma and attempted healing through the food that reminds her of her family in Iran.
Pots are stirred, emotions boil; or they should do. The warm and affable Isabella Nefar dexterously multitasks acting and cooking yet fails to convincingly channel the raw, blistering emotions of someone wracked with flashbacks of domestic abuse. At one point, her eyes catch sight of a knife and she shakes uncontrollably, associating it with one of her husband’s attacks, but this is immediately undercut by the way she transitions back to lightly mixing herbs. If she is desperately trying to keep it together, as is suggested by her repeated commands to herself to ‘focus’ and her need to sing in Farsi to self-soothe, then Chris White’s direction should have ensured these transitions were difficult and disorientating, like emerging from a nightmarish fever dream.
Terror, in fact, is most poignantly conveyed by Marty Langthorne’s lighting choices, the standout feature of this production. The hanging lamp in the kitchen flickers as voices from the past return once more, reflecting the woman’s shaky grip on reality. A blackout is likewise masterfully employed, plunging the audience into a period of uncomfortable confusion, a mirror to the ways this female migrant’s identity was erased by her husband, leaving her to find her own light once more.
Enhancing this eerie atmosphere are a handful of references to Wuthering Heights. Stored in the kitchen island in lieu of cookbooks, this out of place gothic tome is referred to as ‘the dried blood book’; it represents a wound that’s healing. A source of childhood fascination for our protagonist, teaching her that true love is obsessive, addictive, and all-consuming, it forms a fatal conception of what a healthy relationship is.
My English Persian Kitchen is a play that explodes the sexist idea that women belong in the kitchen by reclaiming it as a meaningful place of healing and connection. It admirably puts a spotlight on domestic abuse and coercive control, urgent topics in much need of wider cultural discussion, but the devastating realities of these experiences should burn, not simmer.
Drama
By Hannah Khalil from a story by Atoosa Sepehr
Director: Chris White
Photo credits: Ellie Kurttz
Cast includes: Isabella Nefar
Until: Saturday 5th October 2024
Running Time: 1 hour and 10 minutes