FOOD

“Oh, I’m absolutely full. I’ve eaten too much!” lamented a woman as she moved from the restaurant to the foyer. Such an apt precursor to a play called FOOD, which examines our relationship to it.

FOOD, the performance, is a collaboration between many experienced creative people but writer and performer, Geoff Sobelle is the lone character, a waiter, watching as we enter the modified space on His Majesty’s Theatre stage. 

Some audience members have been selected by raffle tickets to be seated at the huge 30-seater table at its centre. After a preamble of first life forms and survival of the fittest foraging for food, the waiter asks some guests at the table about their last meal or their favourite food.

Fragrance of wine (poured by a few guests) provokes sense memories and some of the audience get to share their thoughts. This lends a dinner party atmosphere to the gathering and those of us not seated at the table can either breathe a sigh of relief or feel left out.

More people are called upon to tell us the ingredients of their favourite meal. One guest reels off a list of what’s contained in quesadillas, while our waiter stands by with a tray in hand, then by some mystical conjuring, the tray is presented, and it has upon it some freshly cooked quesadillas!

Sobelle is a trained magician whose skill is certainly on display with some large sleight of hand and confidence tricks.

Next, a woman chooses a potato from the vegetable menu and orders it “baked”. Our waiter plants the seed, “grows” the potato and somehow cooks it with a candle, serving it to the customer hot, wrapped in foil, passed down from guest to guest, steaming when she uncovers it. Talk about an efficient food chain!

When the waiter turns a bit grumpy at the end of his shift, he clears the table (and all sense of goodwill towards us) with one huge tablecloth heave. A disturbing scene of absolute gluttony follows, where the table’s leftovers (three bowls of rice, multiple apples, vegetables, raw eggs, salad dressing) were somehow gobbled down whole, including the money left for payments and the waiter’s mobile phone!

However, what really left a bad taste in our mouths, on this night, was the utterly selfish audience members who had the privilege of sitting at the table but chatted non-stop throughout the performance.

Geoff Sobelle clearly is such an experienced performer that he never broke stride. Does a class system of food, or where we eat it, have this effect on certain people?

Even though it was theatrically and visually stunning, the table didn’t need to transform into a farming vista, arctic ice-fishing plateau, or urban development (with cute props handed out by guests) to convince us of the fragility of the food chain and our part in damaging it.

Geoff Sobelle could use the gravitas of his solid stage presence and magical performance to convince us of anything.

Jane Keehn

Photographers: Iain Masterton and Maria Baranova