A FEAST FOR FOODIES AT THEATRE ARTAUD 
                                              By Carol Benet
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area theater
                                                                 Weeks starting Jan. 18, 2012
                                                                 Vol. 14, No. 39

         The wonderful show “Food Stories” features a comedy with the chef’s worst nightmare: working in a restaurant where  everything goes wrong, precisely when the leading food critic comes in to eat.
            It’s a new play by Word for Word, the troupe that has been producing written stories, verbatim, on the stage here for almost 20 years. Here two short stories are acted out, word-for-word.  The stories will entertain while also making fun of foodies, people who live for gustatory surprise and excellence. 
            Since there are many foodies in the Bay Area, the stories are timely.  I love to eavesdrop on the foodies seated near me at restaurants.  Their discussions with the waiters about the “specials” and with their companions are moments of intense high drama and they could be mini-theatrical moments by themselves, especially when the food is served and they carefully consume their dishes -- often shared between them.
            “Food Stories” makes fun of this culture, the first play especially. “Sorry Fugu” takes place in the kitchen of a popular and well-appointed restaurant.  There is no lack of chrome here.  The chef is a real “artiste.” So too is his head waiter, who swishes in and out of the swinging door to the dining room while he presents the plates to the customers. 
            The complication of plot, as in classic drama, happens when the acerbic and mean-spirited Willa Frank is coming with her beer-guzzling boyfriend, and neither of them like their food.  Willa Frank is the food critic of the most important newspaper in town. The chef is distraught because, as everyone knows, a bad review can kill a restaurant.  
            So amidst all the chaos of a dishwasher who quits, a cleaner who doesn’t come, French cream that goes sour and other day-to-day problems in running a restaurant, the chef comes up with an idea.  He’ll make a down-home meal for the beer-swilling  boyfriend -- potatoes, gravy,  discounted canned peas and so on. 
            In between all the verbal and stage business, the kitchen staff dances to popular songs --tangos, Irish melodies, operatic arias -- when the script mentions something relevant to the songs.  When they think of making a potato dish, they do an Irish step dance; a salsa brings on a tango.   It is simply hysterical to follow them through the play.  Every minute is a delight.
            “Sorry Fugu” was written by T.C. Boyle, that over-the-top L.A. type who wrote “The Road to Wellville,” a spoof on John Harvey Kellogg, founder of the cereal company, and “Tortilla Curtain,” just to mention two of his funniest novels. 
            The second play by Alice McDermott, “Enough,”  is more serious, a touching story about aging.  It is about an older and younger woman and an ensemble that comes and goes.  The older woman eats lots of ice-cream from the fridge and is beginning to lose it mentally. 
            John Fisher directs the two plays smartly.  He is the wunderkind who grew up in Ross, went to UC Berkeley where he received a Ph.D. in Theater Arts.  He has been producing plays here and all around the country and has taught at UC and the Yale School of Drama.  He served as the Artistic Director of Theatre Rhinoceros in San Francisco.  Fisher stages some of the best comedies in the Bay Area.
            Since the actors work as an ensemble, taking many parts and even preparing the set changes, it is difficult to single any one out for praise.  It is sufficient to say that they are all excellent.
            “Food Stories” by Word for Word is produced by the Z Space, a non-profit organization that fosters new theater.  The productions are held at their home base, Theatre Artaud.
            “Food Stories” by the Word for Word troupe, two one-acters about foodies. Theatre Artaud, 450 Florida Street, San Francisco. Performances through February 5.  For info: (800) 838 3006, or go online.
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        © Carol Benet 2012
        Carol Benet is a regular theater reviewer for artssf.com.
    These critiques appearing weekly (or sometimes semi-weekly, but never weakly)focus on theater, dance and new musical creativity in performance, with forays into recordings by local artists, and a few departures into books (by authors of the region)as well.
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