"Fully satisfying."-Glenn Sumi, So Sumi
Bette, a beloved YouTube cooking sensation, built her brand as a relatable single mother with her toddler sous chef, KitKat, by her side. Now the host of a major network show, she struggles to stay palatable while teenage Kit grows increasingly withdrawn, his emergent climate activism leading him into the radical corners of the Internet. When the network pressures Bette to spice up her show and Kit asks to make a guest appearance to promote his niche online channel, the generational rift between them turns their televised reunion into a recipe for disaster.
Incisive, edgy, and deliciously funny, Zorana Sadiq's Comfort Food picks apart the performative identities and echo chambers of our insatiable culture of spectacle and consumption. Exploring familial love, planetary inheritance, and the radicalization of chronically online youth, this potent play asks if our feeds provide the nourishment we truly hunger for.
• First produced by Crow's Theatre, Toronto, in association with Zorana Sadiq, from May 13 to June 8, 2025.
• Zorana is a great cook and feeding people is her love language.
Beloved YouTube cooking star Bette built her brand as a relatable single mother alongside her toddler sous chef, KitKat. Now hosting a major network show, she struggles to stay relevant while teenage Kit's emergent climate activism leads him into radical online spaces. When the mother and son duo decide to reappear together on live television, the generational rift between them turns their spectacle into a recipe for disaster. Zorana Sadiq's Comfort Food is an incisive, whip-smart family drama about performative identities, modern parenthood, and what truly nourishes us.
An incisive family drama about what truly nourishes us.
"Fully satisfying... Sadiq has stirred in some specific ingredients that make this particular family dynamic feel authentic: the alienation of social media, for instance, the pressures of single parenthood, and the very real fear of growing up in a world that's on the brink of destruction."
"The play is full of clever thematic shading. Rattling throughout their interactions are notions about earthy authenticity and strategic, sustainable technologies."
"Zorana Sadiq's 'food for thought' script is a delicious treat of a play. A nutritious mixture of terrific performances and surprising plot development I didn't see coming. Hilarious one minute, while poignantly touching the heart, the next minute."
"Comfort Food isn't here to soothe. It's here to ask: what are we feeding each other, and why?"
"Through its small family drama, Comfort Food stylishly locates the existential drama of our Anthropocene and the Internet age, satirizing modern society's fetishes for comfort and wasteful consumption by refracting one spectacle into the other."
"A deep dive into our relationships with food, and with each other, and what happens when that all starts to crumble."
"A superb achievement."
