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What’s Entertainment?
Intimate Theatre/ Dinner Theatre/
Experimental Theatre
-By Gene Williams
When we first imagined
our restaurant as theatre it wasn’t long
before there was controversy, mainly over
what kind of plays to choose. This
immediately raised questions about what, in
fact, is …entertainment. Traditional dinner
theatre usually presented light and humorous
general audience material. We wanted to
engage the audience, not just entertain.
After the first show we realized how
intimate our theatre space is, and it lent
itself to more experimental material,
sometimes with powerful messages. We also
imagined that our version of entertainment
would attract a more sophisticated audience
that was hungry for brain food and emotional
challenges. When Noni decided to direct Death and the Maiden about kidnapping and
rape in Chili we once again confronted our
notions about entertainment.
 If
this play was successful the audience might
just need to throw up as a result – not
exactly “dinner theatre”. We went ahead with
the show (no one threw up because we made
sure everyone had finished eating) Later we
produced Neil Labute's Bash and again
challenging content and language issues
surfaced. Here is how we finally settled on
content criteria for our “intimate theatre”:
“Through out the
centuries culture has always happened around
food. In community, celebrations and
memorials are centered around food in the
kitchen - or around a campfire - That’s
where culture happens. Where we prepare our
foods, tell (and invent) our stories, have
family fights, engage in and honor certain
customs and remember our pasts - or at least
maybe a humorous anecdote from the day
before. All this is around food. So welcome
to our dinner table.”
"Surprise Theatre," of
course, takes the notion of intimate theatre
and food a step further.
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