My Dinner With Chef Lear — LA’s Speakeasy Society Dishes Up The Drama With ‘Family Meal’ (The NoPro…

The Speakeasy Society, a stalwart of the Los Angeles immersive theatre scene, has returned with their first original full-length immersive show in years. Family Meal combines both family drama and fine dining, with heady topics like legacy and loyalty at the forefront. This is also their first collaboration with Order/Fire Productions, helmed by Chef Ben Baron, whose resume includes well-regarded names that foodies may recognize, such as Bestia, Sqirl, and Roberta’s. Mining similar territory like hit shows The Bear or Succession, audiences are welcomed into the business of a family-run restaurant on the eve of the patriarch’s impending retirement (though no specific reason seems to be given for his stepping down).

We begin with a cocktail hour, where the characters mingle with the audience in the kitchen and passed hors d’oeuvres are on offer (don’t miss the candied loquat served with fresh rosemary). The group is welcomed officially to this celebratory dinner at the historic home of Chef Shelley Landwald (played by Neill Fleming during my performance); we are, somewhat awkwardly, also a part of the pre-service briefing from the restaurant’s general manager to the staff. The audience is then broken up into smaller groups. Each group becomes part of a short interactive scene — mine was with Chef and Anna (Claire Chapelli) in his study — before sitting down to our dinner at a long, elegantly set dinner table with Chef Landwald at the head.

These early scenes feel a bit clunky at times, weighted down by the need to give us a thorough accounting of the personalities in attendance: the oldest son and classically trained sous chef Jozef (Chris Mollica) who is poised to take over the restaurant but seems on the precipice of some kind of breakdown; his sister Anna, the sommelier who has come home from abroad for the occasion but also can’t wait to get away again; the mousy pastry chef Faris (Zan Headley) who toils quietly out of the spotlight and happens to be Chef’s adopted son; Chef Byron (Alexander Demers), the chef de cuisine who has been with Chef Landwald for years but is often butting heads with the Landwald kids; and Shiloh (Emily Faris), the restaurant’s head waiter, who may have a trick or two up her sleeve and really wants to keep her job after the regime change. (Spoiler: if you, like Mario Kondo, love mess, this might be the show for you.)

It’s not until after we sit down and the first course is served that the cast really settles in, and, as expected, fireworks erupt. Chef Landwald puts on his best King Lear and demands his three children compete to be the singular heir who takes control of the family business and that the winner shall be decided via a cooking competition starting… now.

Like I said: mess.

The story unfolds from there, with drama happening all around us before a course is served or as part of the transition to the next course. Accusations often fly around the room as last bites are consumed and the dirty dishes get cleared. However, this is no ordinary “dinner theatre,” as the immersive structure of the show deftly integrates the six dish tasting menu with the narrative.

Get Kathryn Yu’s stories in your inbox

Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.

SubscribeSubscribe

Between courses, attendees are essentially on one of a few “dark ride” style tracks and can witness a small fraction of the action because multiple scenes occur simultaneously; diners may be asked to the kitchen to help create the next course or provide moral support to a character on the smoking patio. Bursts of laughter or excited shouts occasionally erupt from elsewhere in the house; despite being constrained to a small patio, a loft space acting as Chef’s study, the kitchen, and the dining room, the show makes great use of the space available to them.

Each dish served in Family Meal is not only delicious but tells a part of the restaurant’s history, be it an early collaboration between Chef Landwald and his dearly departed wife Maria or a clever way to use up kitchen scraps devised by Chef Byron and Chef Landwald in the very early days of their collaboration. There are some brief opportunities of interactivity throughout the three hour long experience but the script is hefty and the performers have a lot of lines to get through. Many of the scenes could have used another beat to breathe, now and again, I found. But the clock is ticking and it’s already time to fire the next course.

Overall, the pacing affords enough time to finish the dish in front of you without the need to inhale it (but feel free to, especially after Anna’s dish hits the table). It also means that there’s only a minute or two to start a conversation with your table neighbors before being ushered to the next scene or before a different character bursts in and starts shouting at someone.

In Family Meal, the audience are cast as a mix of VIPs, industry friends, loyal customers, and food writers who are all, of course, Chef’s adoring fans. The dialogue assumes the audience will act as if we recognize references to the restaurant’s most famous dishes or events in Chef’s personal history. But it’s not the easiest role to “play” as an audience member when Chef Landwald is overbearing, demanding, and rude as he holds court at the head of the dinner table. The writing in Family Meal seems to lean into the trope that auteurs need to be, well, assholes a lot of the time. But how exactly do you separate art from the artist when the artist is a few feet away, screaming at his youngest child?

As the night went on, I really started to wonder why Chef’s children desired his approval so badly; I hoped someone would step forward and break the cycle. Making a show like Family Meal, centered around a narcissistic chef, is a tall order; creators must craft a narrative carried by a nuanced, complex antihero who people can still connect with, someone who you recognize is a real jerk but still kind of like; to nail it, you perhaps need to pull from the charisma of a Tony Soprano or the gravitas of a Logan Roy or the deep-seated sadness of Carmy Berzatto or the self-deprecating wit of Anthony Bourdain. Family Meal boasts a unique format, bolstered by excellent food, a solid ensemble of actors, and some very good dinner entertainment. But I left the experience hungry for just a tiny bit more.

Discover the latest immersive events, festivals, workshops, and more at our new site EVERYTHING IMMERSIVE, home of NoPro’s show listings.

NoPro is a labor of love made possible by our generous Patreon backers. Join them today and get access to our Newsletter and Discord! You can also GIFT memberships.

In addition to the No Proscenium website and our podcast, and you can find NoPro on Bluesky, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, and in the Facebook community also named Everything Immersive.