Belly ★★★★

Reilly O’Shaughnessy’s solo show Belly is an intergenerational story about food and eating, which are not at all the same thing. “Is there a food that makes you feel safe?” O’Shaughnessy asks the audience and answers for herself: While in recovery from an eating disorder, Honey Nut Cheerios felt safe to eat. For the characters in the show, food isn’t safe. It has the potential to help you achieve your dreams or to dash them.

The women who are the subjects of Belly are Ellie a/k/a “Ellie Belly”; Kate, Ellie’s aunt; and Susan, Ellie’s grandmother. Ellie is a high school swimmer. Her coach puts her on a 1,300-calorie-a-day diet so she’ll look fit when college coaches come to see her swim. She’s a good girl who wants to go to a good school on a scholarship, so she counts calories and skips meals. Encouraged by the coach, she loses 70 pounds and her lap times get worse.

Katie, Ellie’s aunt, is 33 and pregnant with her first child. Her OB-GYN recommends a diet that includes every known food fad to ensure that she isn’t “fattening the baby.” Included in the diet are raw milk, unpasteurized sauerkraut, virgin almond butter, “wild-caught uncursed” ocean fish, and sprouted oats. It doesn’t make sense, but she was raised to be a good girl, so she follows the doctor’s advice.

Susan, Ellie’s grandmother, isn’t coping well with her husband’s death. She’s still talking to him, months after his passing. A conversation she has, not with him but with the young man from the funeral home who delivers her husband’s ashes, is especially poignant. She asks him how she can cope with her grief, and offers him half a tuna salad sandwich. Food is part of the exchange, as it is with every scene in Belly; loss is the other focus of the play.

Belly will make you see your next meal in a totally different way. Another actor might have been more comfortable with the many mimed actions, though Ellie’s swimming suggested that O’Shaughnessy had competed in high school or college. Director Juliet Kapanjie effectively balanced the character and scene changes. Nikki Rose Martin’s song commented on the play, and the music was ably served by sound designer Eric Backus. Audience responses show that O’Shaughnessy touches on serious issues in a way that resonates and isn’t didactic, even if an eating disorder hasn’t been part of one’s life.

This production was reviewed in preview ahead of the Fringe at 59E59