If you weren’t lucky enough to travel to Scotland for this year’s Edinburgh International Festival, the performance that generated the most buzz was a unique theatrical experience featuring a full dinner party where nobody ate anything. Geoff Sobelle is the acclaimed actor, director, magician and creator who wrote this spectacle, titled Food, and he’s bringing the party to Nashville's OZ Arts for a two-week run from Thursday, Nov. 30, until Sunday, Dec. 10.
Sobelle has been at the center of participatory theater for a decade as the author of two plays that examine society’s relationship with stuff in The Object Lesson and with our abodes with Home. Now he turns his laser focus to what we eat in an essentially plotless 90-minute performance that takes place around a 500-square-foot dinner table where no one eats except him. And boy, does he eat.
In a commentary on conspicuous consumption. Sobelle eats an insane amount of food over the course of the performance — although, remember, he’s a magician, so there might be a little chicanery involved. The show has received raves for its staging, writing and acting, and as long as you come in prepared to see and hear anything, the absurdist experience promises to be deeply affecting. Also, come in fed, because you won’t get any of the food on the massive table. That’s part of shtick; you’ll definitely leave with something to chew on, but not to eat.
The show has been described as profound and sometimes disturbing, but so is our relationship with food at times. Sobelle asks attendees to consider questions like: Why do you eat what you eat? Where does it come from? What does it really cost?
Tickets are available starting at $30 at the OZ Arts website. Both general admission seating and table seating at the center of the performance are available.
Another event to look forward to, especially if you work in the hospitality industry, happens this evening at the bar at Nelson’s Green Brier’s distillery location in Marathon Village. Local U.S. Bartenders Guild president Chris Mallon has organized a new Industry Night series beginning tonight, Nov. 20.
To honor those who work behind the stick and in restaurants, Nelson’s Green Brier will be offering deals of food and drink along with live music and dancing. This is the last Monday night before the holidays descend on Nashville and tourists descend like locusts on our fair city from now until New Year’s, so these hardworking locals deserve to blow it out a little bit.
You’re invited even if you don’t work in the industry, and the party runs from 7 until 10 p.m. Maybe drop by and buy your favorite bartender a drink!
