If you’re fan of hot wings, or even if you just watch the TV show “Hot Ones,” you know that the spice in the sauce takes a little time before its full scorching power hits the tongue.
That’s the same for Katori Hall’s Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy-drama “Hot Wing King,” which opened Saturday in its San Diego premiere at Cygnet Theatre. The six-character play, which runs two hours 45-minutes with intermission, doesn’t really bring the heat until late in Act One. Then, in the superior second act, the fiery drama really cooks.
Thankfully, director Kian Kline-Chilton’s high-energy, playful and dance- and laugh-filled staging keeps the play’s momentum rolling until the drama warms up.
“Hot Wing King” is about a group of gay friends who compete every year in a Memphis hot wing festival. After several years of contest defeats, the New Wing Order team’s chef, Cordell, is convinced he has a winning recipe. But when his partner’s teen nephew unexpectedly arrives on their doorstep on the festival’s eve, the tensions that have been simmering between the two partners ignites.
Hall has said she was inspired to write the play by seeing the evolution of her gay brother’s relationship with his partner, who had previously been in a heterosexual relationship. As a result, her script feels authentic, both in how she has written her characters and the minimal amount of background exposition she provides in the script.
For an audience member, it’s like being dropped in on another family’s reunion. It’s fun to watch and entertaining, but the relationships between the characters only unveil themselves gradually.
Cordell, played with both warmth and deep sadness by the wonderful Rondrell McCormick, has been living in Memphis for two months with his partner Dwayne, who is sweetly and sensitively portrayed by the endearing Tristan J Shuler.
Cordell separated from his wife in St. Louis two years earlier, but he never got a divorce or revealed to his family that he’s in love with another man. Now he’s at loose ends in Memphis — unemployed, far from his sons and resentful over his lack of power in his relationship with Dwayne, a hotel manager who s them both in great comfort (Audrey R. Casteris’ two-story home set is so gorgeous I wish I could live there).
The wildly comic Kevane La’Marr Coleman steals several scenes as Cordell and Dwayne’s flamboyant friend Isom and Xavier Daniels is the warm heart of the play as the barber Big Charles. Local college student Jocorey Mitchell makes a very impressive professional theater debut in his emotional and unguarded performance as Dwayne’s 16-year-old nephew Everett. And the soft-spoken Carter Piggee completes the cast as TJ, Everett’s emotionally-conflicted drug-dealing dad.
Caroline Andrew designed lighting, Padra Crisafulli designed sound and Danita Lee designed costumes.
Like the end of a good meal, “Hot Wing King” rewards the viewer with a satisfying denouement. It also offers a funny and thoughtful insight to a community — Black gay Southern men — that has only recently been explored in more depth by non-LGBTQ theaters.
‘The Hot Wing King’
When: 7 p.m. Wednesdays through Fridays; 2 and 7 p.m. Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays. Through May 2
Where: Cygnet Theatre, 4040 Twiggs St., Old Town State Historic Park, San Diego
Tickets: $34 and up
Phone: 619-337-1525
Online: cygnettheatre.com
