By Katelyn Kenney
“Waitress” is a musical by Jessie Nelson based on the 2007 movie of the same name, with music and lyrics written by singer/songwriter Sara Bareilles. The story follows Jenna, a small-town diner waitress with a God-given talent for baking pies. Jenna and her fellow servers Becky and Dawn bemoan the inconveniences of their romantic lives (Becky is married to an invalid; Dawn has never even had a boyfriend), but we soon learn that Jenna’s life is becoming more complicated after she gets pregnant by her manipulative (read: abusive) husband Earl. The plot, like a good pie filling, thickens when Jenna discovers her lifelong doctor has been replaced by a young and endearingly gauche Dr. Pomatter. Throughout the musical, food—specifically Jenna’s homemade pies—serve as a delicious vehicle by which our protagonist explores her challenging past, tumultuous present, and uncertain future.
When the trials of life get to Jenna, she immediately turns to pie. Sometimes she retreats within herself and pieces together a hypothetical dessert with unconventional titles and ingredients influenced by her recent circumstances (take, for instance, “I Don’t Want to Have a Baby with Earl Pie,” a quiche-like concoction of eggs and smelly brie). Other times, she heads to the kitchen and simply begins to bake. The act of creating a pie is cathartic and also nostalgic for Jenna as she recalls the days of her childhood in the kitchen with her mother where she learned that these treats can be “doors to help make it through” whatever life may bring. It should be noted that Jenna’s father was also an abusive alcoholic, so it can be assumed that baking was a distraction employed by Jenna’s mother to protect her child.
As Jenna’s pregnancy progresses, so does her relationship with Dr. Pomatter. What began as a straightforward, albeit adorably awkward, doctor-patient exchange quickly develops into a full-blown affair catalyzed by none other than one of Jenna’s pies. Their hookups are disguised as doctor’s appointments, safe from speculation by the spouses (Dr. Pomatter is also married, though we don’t learn much else about his background). In one of the musical numbers (reprise of “Bad Idea”), Jenna and Dr. Pomatter’s adventurous romps around the office are coupled with decidedly erotic pies: a “Pineapple Upside-Down Pie” that Dr. Pomatter eats off Jenna’s stomach and “In the Dark Dark Chocolate Pie,” at whose mention the lights are shut off, implying that the two are fooling around in the pitch black.
Jenna’s attitudes and motivations can be traced to her desire to leave Earl and her indifference towards being a mother. Giving up the baby is not an option for Jenna, so hides money from Earl as she plots to pay the entrance fee for the Springfield Pie Contest after receiving enough support to reasonable believe she could win the prize money and create a new life for her and the child without her husband. Jenna’s baking prowess could very well be her ticket out of her loveless marriage and dead-end job. In “A Soft Place to Land,” the three waitresses muse on their dreams while sharing the work of making a pie, which Jenna is using to connect with her mother’s spirit as she seeks refuge. Her identity is closely linked to her mother, and pie is the medium through which she ultimately finds herself.
Jenna’s plan to use the pie contest as an escape route gets sidetracked when Earl discovers the money she’s hidden. All hope seems effectively lost until Jenna holds her baby for the first time. It is that precise moment that Jenna receives the strength to confront Earl rather than run from him. She triumphantly ends their marriage and revels in the feeling of being born again. In a bittersweet demonstration of goods things coming to an end, Jenna also cuts off her affair with Dr. Pomatter. She has finally taken hold of her life, and though she never got her shot at the pie contest, she has won her liberation (and ends up inheriting the diner). Jenna’s journey to freedom and self-actualization had its fair share of twists, but once she decided to rewrite the recipe, there was no obstacle sugar, butter, and flour couldn’t make a little sweeter.