The Cook begins in the kitchen of a Cuban mansion on New
Year’s Eve in 1958, the night before Castro’s army seizes
Havana. The owners of the house flee and their cook Gladys (the
excellent Zabryna Guevara) vows to protect the
mansion until they
return. That turns out to be a long damn time, during which the cook,
her pigheaded Communist
husband, and her terrified gay
cousin flail around in the dangerous politics of Castro’s worker’s
paradise.
The denouement comes in 1997, when the owners’
daughter—an angry Miami Cuban—shows up for lunch.

(Seattle Rep, 155 Mercer St, 443-2222. 7:30 pm,
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Brend an Kiley has worked as a child actor in New Orleans, as a member of the junior press corps at the 1988 Republican National Convention, and, for one happy April, as a bootlegger’s assistant in Nicaragua....