377 days - Blog #40 - dinner and theater all at once

So Saturdays are supposed to be about food.  But I also went to a ‘show’ tonight.  Fortunately that show was a dinner theater, so I can stay true to my theme.

My exposure to dinner theater is actually pretty limited.  It is a pretty limiting art form, something I’ve learned from the one or two times when I’ve participated in said genre. 

But it is popular.  I can think of more than a handful of local groups who produce the combined experience of a meal and a show.  Only, dinner theater is supposed to put one in the show.  Often they are mysteries, so the involvement is collecting clues.

I decided to go to this one because it featured a number of theater friends and acquaintances.  And… it was just down the street.  I mean, how often can I say a theatrical anything is just down the street in Oakham?  A win win on many levels.

It was fun.  It was dinner theater.  I think – I know – that the fact there is a meal in there dilutes any performance.  You want to have conversation with people at the table, but it’s kind of weird because you don’t know if you should indulge small talk or discuss your theories with the other table/team so close by.

At the risk of sounding smug, I figured it out.  But I lost confidence in my theory when a team member suggested my thought was too far-fetched.  I thought it was… so I just went along with our uncertain answer.  I really wasn’t in it to win anything.  I was in it to be among friends… and not so dishonestly, to observe the audience.   Both in Oakham and in the theatrical arts supporting community of this area.

The premise was the Wild West, a trope of which I am not typically fond as it is full of stereotypes against brown people and women.  And not surprisingly, they were there.  I cringed at every utterance of ‘Red Indian’ and not just a few unintentionally oblivious slights against Native Americans.  I wonder if I should be ashamed that I waited until this blog to voice that concern.  But I also know throwing out the ‘that’s insensitive’ card loses impact in certain settings.  Especially Oakham.  But I have to think about that some and learn how to articulate that better.

Truthfully, though, it is full of stereotypes.  It’s a pretty two dimensional script.  And that’s what a dinner theater kind of needs to be.  Just not insensitive.

Anyway… moving on from that, the food was actually quite good.  There was a salad of fresh vegetables as the first course.  And I’m not talking some romaine lettuce, an arbitrary cucumber slice, tomato, red onion ring, and olive.  It was a good mix of greens with cherry tomatoes and cucumbers and fresh mushrooms and feta cheese and egg and bacon and balsamic dressing… good stuff.  And they served it family style.  Something that reminded me of my days at Oakham Center School when our school lunches were served family style.  Yup, that’s right.  No lunch line for us in that school.  It was kind of awesome.  I also appreciated that serving choice because I have a scene in my recent manuscript at a church dinner (this was in a church) where salad is served family style.  I didn’t think that was realistic for some reason.  Well, this evening helped validate that detail choice.  So, for that alone, this evening was a complete win.

Of course, that wasn’t the main course.  In the Texas theme, it was pulled pork and cole slaw and cornbread.  I’m picky about pulled pork.  Because I make it.  In fact, I was JUST thinking about making it to bring to a theater related event next weekend.  I am proud of that crock pot dish and want it to at least be as good as something I would make.  It was.  They did serve it on cheap white bread rolls… but that’s okay.  I totally comprehend my bread snobbery.  The cornbread was good, too.  As was the dessert spread.  Although I only had one item from the buffet, that I had an inkling was a concoction of a friend in the cast.  So I’m glad I made the choice.

I’m glad I went.  I wish I played more with the cast.  Because I knew them.  But I was actually trying to absorb the details of clues.  I’m a silent thinker.  But, damn it, that first monologue planted a detail in my brain… if only I fought for my hare-brained hypothesis!

Well, it all plants a seed – no wrong metaphor.  It reawakens an abandoned inspiration from when I left Barre eleven years ago.  I created an anachronistic dinner theater at Higgins after multiple outreaches where the accidental double entendres of swords and flails and lances went over the heads of students but made many a teacher snicker in the back of the auditorium.  I had great ideas for that… but it was limited by time and the fact we were surrounded by museum artifacts and my own distractions.  After London and before Boston, I thought about doing it on my own – at Barre Players – in that great church hall.  But… well… I did choose Boston and that part of my life fell away.

 

The riveting moment in our show when I made faces at celery.

Do I want to pick it up again?  Maybe.  A night like this makes me think it would work.  Very much work.  And there were some yummy recipes I made for that Twelfth Night supper club.  A meat pie… that I am half tempted to make tomorrow.  Well, we shall see… I seem to be biting a lot of theater nibbles now.  I need to pace myself.

It is nice, though, to know I have so many options.  Even better to know that I’ve learned I don’t need to have them all right now.