Judith Ivey cooking dinner in the first scene of Shirley Valentine
It is a daunting enough task to learn two and a half hours of dialogue in a Liverpudlian accent while creating a complex and interesting character without having to add anything else to it. And yet, Judith Ivey, the star of Long Wharf Theatre’s production of Shirley Valentine, has one more complication to deal with during the first 45 minutes of her tour-de-force performance.
Ivey spends the first scene of the play chopping potatoes and tomatoes and cracking eggs to make dinner for her husband in a working kitchen designed by Long Wharf Theatre staff member Frank Alberino. Normally he likes steak on Thursdays, Shirley (Ivey) tells the audience, but she’s making chips and egg that evening. She puts out a Guinness to complete the meal.
Chips and egg is quintessentially English dish, consisting of fried potatoes cooked with fried eggs. The dish is associated with the working class, and even is considered in some English circles as a shameful food to eat for the middle class.
It’s a simple dish, really. Dump some cooking oil into a frying pan and fry the potatoes. When those are done, pop them in the oven and use the oil to cook the eggs and tomatoes. Not particularly healthy, one might note, but rather tasty.
In addition to being one of America’s great actresses, it turns out that Ivey is a pretty good cook. Crew members who’ve sampled Ivey’s cooking during rehearsals say her potatoes are particularly well done.