A Witness in the Diner – Producing a Play in a Restaurant

On stage— the stage that is a booth in a tiny, cramped, cramped meaning, shoulder to shoulder, knees brushing, not an exaggeration, cramped, restaurant in Brooklyn— four women drink soup to suppress their buried feelings about their sons who turned out not as intended. Audience crammed into stools, metal chairs, booths, feet dangling in the aisle. An actor who plays the server, crawling across the bar; people having to turn their necks side to side to get a better view.

Back stage— the backstage that is a kitchen, that is a service station, that is a patio covered in clothes, and makeup— a group of women pour soup, make sandwiches, ring the pick-up bell, and watch as the play unfolds, now with less control from them, living on its own in a space that is normally theatrical only in the sense that when someone gets the wrong order or needs an omelette and a cup of coffee— as hot as it can get— although there’s only one temperature— the space which is a breakfast restaurant in Brooklyn.

This is oh, Honey, a play named after the condescending way women can speak to each other in a way that makes them appear like they are the most caring, feeling, empathetic friend to you. About four women who meet to discuss their sons’ sexual assault allegations in a diner.

We wanted to produce the play in a functioning restaurant, to have theatre presented in a real space

or is that fair to say

theaters can be— are— real spaces too,

but a restaurant allows people to behave differently— mostly for the worse, primal instincts, a literal hunger comes out.

I served people as both the playwright and producer of the show, understanding the space, the need, and a desire to cut costs by doing another job myself— the audience mostly behaving like just another weekend brunch crowd.

A space that is not a theater,

gives another level of observation

DingDing

The behind the scenes people— designers, producers, assistant stage managers— watching nervously, hands on the bell— the one that belongs to the kitchen— the one that alerts the servers to pick up the food— to DingDing, the stage manager set up in what was once the dish pit, pressing buttons— all of us crammed into a sliver of a hallway that usually functions as the service station— visible to most of the audience members. A new comradery in being huddled together, with an understanding from the audience that we were invisible to the eye if they saw us. An acceptance of suspension of disbelief. A comradery from the audience in return.

In a site-specific play

There are no divides or barriers

No specific playing space

Most of the time anyway

This can feel exciting to an audience or incredible nerve racking

Being up close

Feeling the heat from bodies lunging at each other,

Being able to see sweat building at hairlines

Like the mothers that inhabit the world of the play

The audience is also of one body

But they don’t always laugh on cue

In a small space

Laughter is more contained

People become more self-conscious

Hahaha

Might just be she laughs, instead of a collective throaty sound

People are afraid to laugh at the wrong thing

Audiences especially when more on display

They don’t want to be wrong

Laughing at something inappropriately

Being branded as someone inconsiderate or someone who doesn’t get the play’s meaning

Or to take away from the actors

Because in such a small space, you can hear every sigh, every throat clearing, every crossed leg switch

And yet, people were hungry to be part of the discomfort, wanting to be in the space, choosing it

Maybe there’s something to being somewhere when you’re not supposed to

Like this diner after hours

Perhaps we enjoy peering into that which is not ours, that which is not part of our own worlds.

Like the body of a restaurant, theatre also moves with sweat, tears, and hopefully, a lot of laughs. Not the Hahahas— she laughs— but the real ones.

Like a restaurant, things must happen on cue or mostly on cue. If the bell rings and food isn’t picked up it goes cold, if a lighting cue is missed, so can be a moment of the plot. In both scenarios people expect a certain experience.

They each share in ritual

There’s something about eating together

The act of eating together is in itself a ceremony maybe

A performance

A restaurant is a performance

We each play a role

Amongst our companions, yes but

Also as diner/ server/ bartender/ manager/ person on the street looking in through the window

The server’s role is often trying to please you as diner

Maybe to make you laugh while they recommended the cacio e pepe over the carbonara

Or flirt back while they’re forced to stand in front of you, a slight dip in the knees while they look at you below them, waiting, again, hungry— them with their own agenda in performance

A performance for the diners together too

Everyone playing a role

The diners might and probably do act differently when they’re out

Even servers eventually become diners if and when they go out to eat and the roles reverse.

In this play, the audience are diners, asked by myself— the playwright/ producer/ and now server— wearing an apron, if they wanted pie or a sandwich or a drink before the show began. They treated me like they would any other server, some rude, some nice, some barely acknowledging my existence. When it came time to introduce the show, they changed from viewing me as someone who served them to someone who was curating an experience for them, but to work in a restaurant is of the same vein, just less appreciated of course.

In the play the roles reverse as server watches the women as they watch her.

Although, you’re always being watched by your server in real time, that’s their job, but if they’re curious (or bored), they might try to watch you a little more closely as the character, Mari, does.

Slurping of soup

Dripping down chins

Back of hands rubbing the corners of mouths

Still hungry

She takes it in, forming her own judgments.

After the play ends,

crying over a sink of splattered tomatoes. Mugs stained red, unable to hold what had been released in the 90 minute performance.

Understanding that sometimes we hurt to rid ourselves of something and sometimes this exorcism is done on display to be shared and consumed communally. Because when the character who plays the server says

I’m a selfish bitch. A lazy selfish bitch with ketchup stains on my apron And mayo stuck under my fingernails

It’s clear to many that much of that is you

Even though you’ve hoped to mask it behind a name change and the voice of an actor

There is no hiding, they’ll know.

Watching a play you’ve worked on, that which is personal, sacred, haunting (if only to you), suddenly become shared is stressful or can be if you’re an overthinker and over sharer who like in real life discussions, puts everything on the page with little filter or thought for the perceptions of others.

 It’s familiar in that this is what writers often do, but with a novel you’re not watching the reader as they read, and in a large theater, you can’t always see the eyes, the pupils widen as they hear truths, the mouth turn upwards or downwards or stay paralyzed in a line (maybe the worst thing of all) as your life is bated in front of them, but of course how could they know what is and isn’t fiction.

The hugs after and the thank you’s for coming are genuine, but there is an embarrassment that you’ve put something on display that once lived inside of you and now has a life of its own.

Your secrets walking in the daylight.

This is part of creating, for many a given, but can sometimes make you feel like the discarded soup remnants, clogging the drain.

Watching a play you’ve worked on in an intimate space, is even more vulnerable.

In a theater you can hide in the back row, in the lobby or in the wings, here, in a small space, there is nowhere to hide— not for us as creators or for the audience. The lights are mostly the lights of the restaurant, not stage lights that can make the space go completely black.

Lights from the street pour in. Traffic lights, cars, pedestrians passing by— all blurring reality with fiction.

There is a fear that someone walking by would think the restaurant was open— which nearly happened a few times— a face suddenly illuminated on the other side of the glass door, eyes wide, hand on the door handle, before spotting four women standing on the booth, wielding forks, and realizing that oh, maybe this isn’t a restaurant as advertised, or that something especially strange was going on, before letting go of the handle and rushing away— was always there, as was the fear that those who learned about the play, those that were angered by its content, wanting to see the piece dismantle because they don’t agree with the narrative, don’t agree with the fiction representing something they believe is their story.

Retaliating under false pretenses

trying to buy as many tickets as they could, which in this tiny restaurant, of 27 seats would have been a strong majority of the audience

Who are so close as to brush up against the actors

Adding more stress to the stress to the stress that exists by producing a play

To the stress that exists by producing a play in a restaurant.

The addition of the stress that comes with an angry group that wants to cause you harm for telling a story felt amplified by this real space we were in

Without the function of a theater house to protect us

It felt as if we were in a fishbowl, waiting for the threat to break the glass.

A sigh of relief or many sighs of relief as it didn’t come to this

The threat backed away

And the audiences remained mostly of the community

Often those from the service and theatre industries of course

But also those that maybe wouldn’t normally choose to see a play or enter a theater but maybe did because they were intrigued by the opportunity to witness in a different way

And to maybe be witnessed in return

Is that why we create theater— create in general?

or one of the many reasons

Do we need a witness to parts of our life?

Is that why we go out to eat in restaurants which operate under the guise of a necessary action, yes eating is a necessary action, but is there more to just desiring a specially prepared meal?

Do we seek community in ways and spaces to observe and be observed in— to begin with?

Is this a natural instinct? & (no let’s not get into Aristotelian thought)

Maybe we seek out shared dining and shared observation, to take in together, to process together, whether it’s a full length play or a friend’s breakup story, or the awful world news we don’t know what to do to help, there is something to the act of ingesting, passing a bottle of wine between friends, sharing a piece of chocolate cake with four spoons, licking a bowl of soup clean, digesting together.

NOTES:

oh, Honey was produced – by Ugly Face Theater – at the restaurant Little Egg, in Brooklyn, in 2024 (September 17–October 7), directed by Carsen Joenk. A revival of the site-specific play is scheduled for October 2025.