Geoff Sobelle’s ‘FOOD’ completes his trilogy of ‘the uncommon-ness of common’, which began with ‘The Object Lesson’ (2013), and continued with ‘HOME’ (2017). This will be a slightly unconventional review, ‘FOOD’ being an event which straddles the worlds of theatre, guided meditation, and immersive experience. To explain much would be to entirely ruin it for future audiences.
The idea, however, is simple, ‘FOOD’ intends to make its audience consider anew its relationship to food, what it means to them, and what it should mean to them. A gigantic table dominates the Capital Theatres Studio these days, set for dinner with places for abundant guests upon 3 sides. On the setting free side sits a wallpapered wall, and a very simple prep station where Sobelle will base himself. Raked seating looks down upon the table from two sides, orthogonal to Sobelle’s quasi-kitchen, and thus unable to peer too far into Sobelle’s lair. It’s a remarkable setting for a remarkable show.
Perhaps other critics will reveal some of the mechanics, but I shan’t. Instead, here are the phases of the event, beginning with a closed-eye guided meditation (which is definitely not a guided meditation according to the mic’d up Sobelle). By the time the audience has opened its eyes again, the world has subtly shifted around them, in tiny but unmissable ways. Sobelle is nudging all his diners just a little sideways, and outsde of normal time and space.
The diners so inducted, Sobelle continues, by showing 3 of the diners the wine list. Wine is duly served to this trio, followed by a microphone. A few moments later, seemingly unbidden, those diners begin to share their impressions of the wine, and a memory it stirs in them. (Reader, I was the first to speak.)
More wine is served to more diners, before the dinner menu comes due. Dinner is duly ordered into Sobelle’s roving mic, and served, the various courses produced by ever more extravagant and bizarre means. Potatoes are first grown, then baked. Fish are line caught from Arctic wilds. I speak not figuratively, these things are performed live, before the audience’s eyes.
Of course, after service, the restaurant staff must clean up, and Sobelle does. He eats everything left: everything. It’s quite a feast, including a bowl of raw eggs, and an entire bunch of celery. Or least, he appears to. It’s a startling change of pace, till this point Sobelle having proved an urbane, charming host, with a ready smile, and a puckish air.
So far, so eyebrow raising, but that’s before the table is transformed from dining surface to vast, soil covered landscape, upon which he will crawl and set in motion first the agrarian revolution, then the industrial revolution, bringing this not-so-tiny model world from unsullied wilderness, right up to date. Along the way another audience member will, seemingly, spontaneously begin a narrative detailing a potted history of human food production (right from the start, as per the table.)
The theme/s are clear. Humans aren’t mindful of their food: they should be. So first we must talk about food, then we must think on our memories of food realise what it means to us, and our tendency towards waste.
That’s a solid start, but Julie Andrews was clear about the ‘very good’ place to start, and Sobelle clearly agrees. However, one must admire the sheer audacity to first conceive and then construct the means to deliver this manifestly real experience. “It takes a village to raise a child” or so they say, and whilst Geoff Sobelle is the principal Creator and sole performer, the saying holds true. So a hearty well done to Co-Director Lee Sunday Evans, Co-Director/Magician, Steve Cuiffo, and the expansive prop and equipment design team that facilitated such wonderful executions of so many practical special effects.
The experience is inherently different, however, for attendees sat at the table, and those looking on. Whilst heroic efforts are made to include as many as possible, onlookers will never feel eartquakes shake this little world, or conspire to assist Sobelle in making his world come to fruition. Still, no matter the perspective, no watcher could fail to be impressed by their erstwhile leader’s final vanishing act.
In short, Geof Sobelle’s ‘FOOD’ is a sensational event, part meditation, part conjuration, and something you’ll talk about for weeks thereafter.
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