Loren O. Delaney

This is one for the books. Pulls on the heartstrings in the most profound and nuanced ways. We see a young boy give his father grace, withstanding the cuts of rejection and abandonment by life, through death, government, and last and not least but most poignant his wounded biological father. We get a raw cutting edge look at the fragility of the human experience of boyhood, and manhood, along the intersections while navigating a dystopian epidemic of social inequities. Breeding and overwhelming the longstanding traumas and tensions associated with becoming a single parent that one is never prepared for and the old accepted mythos that one must ruthlessly chase their dreams at the expense of all others to go from rags to riches, or in this case to simply “be smart” and meet basic needs, rooted in an exacerbated individualism and bloated capitalism, packaged into the “better life”. The Kitchen helps us unpack this deeply emotional evocation of our shared need for a quality of life measured rather in the needs of the human heart. One that outweighs the superficiality of luxury that mimics the memory of the energetic life force forged through community, shared experience and shared identity for belonging not for what you do or have but simply because you are. A literal masterpiece with big bruv robinhood themes and a soundtrack that sends me to my 20’s, where memories of love and the loss of innocence are present, while still dance and melodic expression and joy are found despite it all. Thank you for this brilliant work of art. It’s a must see.