‘Now Serving: A Guide to Aesthetic Etiquette in Four Courses’ is a Wild Dinner Party for the Ages…

“Salad!” our host joyously proclaims as she tosses handfuls of arugula in front of an industrial fan.

The wind carries the greenery across the table and over into the audience for the third course of the wackiest dinner I’ve ever had the privilege of attending.

Now Serving by Radiohole is a fantastical musing on feminism, etiquette, and society’s loss of love for the pursuit of “fun for fun’s sake.” According to the pocket sized manifesto/program audience members receive at entry, the world is in dire condition:

“The world outside is gray and drab and grim. It sucks. The people, the masses are an operation [sic] to those who rule. It’s all about functionality and money and numbers. Nothing is enjoyed. People only live to serve functions. Food is served in squares from machines.”

In order to fix it, and perhaps as an act of rebellion, Maggie, Amanda, and Erin, the three women who have figured out the recipe to ending the oppression of the patriarchy, are throwing a dinner party, and you’re invited! However, not everyone gets a seat at this table, and this is the first time I have ever been OK with that. But actually, the structure of Now Serving allows audience members to pick their level of interaction. Top tier tickets ($50) will get you a seat at the table which includes participation in “dinner,” whereas “peanut gallery” tickets ($25) place the audience as observers of the night’s dinner party, putting you outside the fray at a few rows of seats at the foot of the table.

Set in East Village theater The Collapsible Hole, Now Serving invites audience to come early to enjoy complimentary cocktails, including “The Dirty Drip” (a vodka punch circulating through a light up fountain) and a “Mystery Shot,” as well as light hor d’oeuvres. I receive a small plastic shell with the number “2” written on it from the person behind the box office desk, who was sporting a mouse nose mask (not to be put to shame by the bartender’s matching pig nose piece). I wait for my number to be called on the “Now Serving” sign above the doors.

Once inside, I am then ushered to a check-in desk where the attendant takes my shell, gives me a small envelope titled “Paperwork,” which contains my manifesto/program, and instructs me to choose one object from inside the PVC pipe on top of the desk. I reach in and blindly choose a golden flower. It instructs me to “Go to the left!”

A handful of audience members who selected the top tier ticket for Now Serving are seated amongst our hosts at the dinner table and are guided to participate in the ritualistic, kooky dinner party. The rest of the audience observing from the “peanut gallery” snack on popcorn and Junior Mints throughout the five course dinner. The first course is, of course, bread. Erin brings a loaf of Wonder Bread to the table which she begins to unwrap. Suddenly, a shower of bread slices falls from the ceiling. The group is led through a ritual which includes snipping the crust off with scissors, painting a suggestive symbol onto the slice with colored butter, and finally balling the slice up and eating it whole. Audience participants are led by the three ladies through grade school-teacher-style modeling and visual cues, which creates a perfect balance between agency and compliance for participants. For example, after seeing the ladies operate the “wine” (IV bags full of red liquid hung from the ceiling), audience participants felt free to refill their cups and carafes throughout the evening, as necessary.

The remaining courses — soup, salad, main, and dessert — are all just as lively and absurd as the first. Soup is served from a conveyor belt down the middle of the table (and is later returned to the conveyor belt to be toppled over the edge of the table onto the floor), salad comes in a DIY fashion with single serve dressing packets and arugula leaves scattered by the wind of the fan, and dessert is served by a flute playing pastry chef with a not-so-hidden feminist agenda. The creation of this screwy world is done so well right off the bat that I don’t even blink an eye when the main dish is created in real time.

The ladies’ butler, Pepe, who wears a full head mask of Pepe the Frog, is sentenced to death by poison; he is used as an example of “the only way to get rid of some of the dicks in the world.” They eat his brains, pelt him with balloons (filled with who knows what), and make meatloaf out of him, which is then served to the table’s dinner guests. He lies on the table until the phone rings. He answers the phone and describes his newfound understanding and transcendence into something new and revolutionary. Pepe then exits the stage. All the while guests at the table are digging into their main course: the “Pepe” meat loaf.

The wonderful strangeness of the Now Serving universe is made clear from the start of the experience, which is why I think the experience is able to succeed at letting the audience “in” instead of pushing them “out” with the absurdity and chaos of the evening’s events. I knew right from when I entered the lobby whether I was “game to play” or not, and that clear expression is a very difficult thing to do successfully. I also was impressed with the thought given to audience experience throughout the piece. Participants at the table never seemed to be put in a position that caused fear, or lack of consent, or uncertainty. Everything about the participatory elements felt effortless and were executed with finesse.

Whether you’re in the peanut gallery or sitting at the dinner table, both positions offer a complete and fulfilling, albeit very different, viewing experience. Audience members sat at the dinner table are significantly more immersed than those in the peanut gallery, as they actively participate in the piece and help create some of the memorable moments. In fact, watching the participants at the table was the hidden gem of the night. Seeing how guests at the table react to situations and how they choose to participate was fascinating, even unintentionally full of intense humor and emotion at times. But this also creates a potentially problematic matter of consent should dinner table guests not be fully game to be observed. Although, when asked, NYC correspondent Cheyenne Ligon says, “It was hard to look away from the performers and the food, so I didn’t look at them [the peanut gallery observers] or think of them much.” She didn’t necessarily feel “watched” during her time at the dinner table. This structural dichotomy within Now Serving results in an interesting divide between participant and spectator, one that creates two completely different tracks of how to experience the piece. I quite liked observing the other folks at the table and don’t think I would have had as much fun observing from the peanut gallery.

Radiohole has created a well-crafted event that is full of silliness and whimsy, with a hidden layer of reality that looks at the impact of serious societal oppression. Now Serving is a master class in scaffolding audience participation, and that aspect alone is worth seeing. The piece as a whole was really enjoyable as an audience member and was a lovely respite of fun from the normal humdrum of a work night during the week.

One word of advice though, whether you’re sitting at the dinner table or in the peanut gallery: eat before you go.

Now Serving: A Guide to Aesthetic Etiquette in Four Courses has concluded its run.

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