As a mid-lifer myself, the show about the midlife challenges of two women, explored through the lens of an extended bread metaphor, spoke to me. This two-person show covers A LOT in 30 minutes, covering relationships, sexuality, and the challenges of identity that life can throw your way just when you think it’s fully baked. What kind of bread would you be? Both ladies produce demanding, captivating performances as they tag team a series of soliloquies, each performing meditative dance-like movements as they wait their turn to speak. If this show were a bagel, it would be an everything bagel – slightly challenging, terrifically engaging and just crammed with every flavor of midlife tribulation you could think of.

–ALLEN BALDWIN, PortFringe 2019 Review Team

If I was a bread, I’d be matzo! I don’t need to tell you why*. Really, you don’t want me to. I’m a glutton (…………….gluten…..) for a good metaphor, and it would be absolutely insufferable! But this show prompted me to ask myself, as I’m sure is the intention. Full Sun Theater packs a doughy, soul-satisfying snack into half an hour. Both actors are bright, charming, lovable, relatable, sultry, and complex. And they do so without asking for, needing, or wanting your permission. I could tell you how baking bread is a metaphor for dealing with grief, navigating societal prejudices, being horny at 40, coping with divorce, and maintaining power through all of life’s trivialities and challenges. Or you could just go see the show, which I sincerely hope you do. Paired during this double feature with Rearranging The Furniture, BREAD is a god damn fringey delight, even if you’re gluten free. Ham On Rye Forever!!! *ok, fine, I’ll tell you. It’s because I self identify with being unapproachable but I’m not, I’m reliable (usually), fantastic in the right situations, needs a little tenderness and support to shine, but can hold my ground and defend myself against the ~tests of time~. Also a little salty and passionate about SOUPS!!! #BREADSONA

–MACKENZIE BARTLETT, PortFringe 2019 Review Team

Full Sun Theatre, a pair of theater-makers from the breadbasket of America (by that I mean Iowa), interviewed several women in the throes of middle age, starting with the question: If you were a kind of bread, what would you be? Weaving together the answers (e.g. baguette – hard on the outside, soft in the middle and best with cheese) along with other stories about desire, marriage, fitting in, feeling pulled, acceptance, anger, and becoming gluten-free, the ease-ful and often humorous performers challenge accepted norms and pose questions about what it means to live in the body of a woman, no matter how she/they identify. We also learn about the chemical process of baking bread, its perils and triumphs, as they knead dough, toss it around, and even bake two tiny loves on stage in a pink, high-end version of the Easy Bake Oven that any middle-aged American woman might recognize. The only disappointment was not getting to taste any of the displayed rolls or loaves, which would count as my favorite form of audience participation.

— BESS WELDEN, PortFringe 2019 Review Team

I experienced BREAD by watching the very quiet movements of the baker actor preparing and making the bread and the sunflower actor speaking. The baker actor’s movements while the second actor spoke were like watching Tai-Chi. The pairing of lived lives to different types of bread was a witty way to approach talking about mid-life. And now I really wanna drink a beer and eat shortbread…

— BRIDGET M., PortFringe 2019 Review Team