Food

24 Apr-03 Jun ,

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Mmm, what's cooking, Belvoir?

First published on 24 Aug 2011. Updated on 16 May 2012.

As artistic director of Force Majeure, Kate Champion has frequently blended ingredients of dance and theatre in such works as The Age I’m In and this year’s Sydney Festival production Never Did Me Any Harm. This latest Champion-directed production, however, is a true fusion of the elements of movement-based performance and the theatre. Food is a Force Majeure-Belvoir collaboration, and the first time a Force Majeure production has had a bona fide script from the outset: that of actor-playwright Steve Rodgers, who also co-directs here. The result is a play that occasionally and brilliantly bursts into dance.

In a small kitchen space busy with pots and pans, we meet two sisters who are gearing up to open a highway diner: Emma (Kate Box), in her element with a spatula and wearing her apron like armour, and Nancy (Emma Jackson), the prodigal sibling returned. Into the mix splashes Hakan (Fayssal Bazzi), a Turkish traveller and broad-smiled applicant – the only applicant – for the position of kitchenhand, with a tendency towards English that’s more enthusiastic than accurate.

There are, of course, skeletons in the sisters’ respective pantries: Rodgers’s backstories for the characters smack of some strong, if not unfamiliar, flavours. More surprising is Champion’s movement work, conveying in-fighting, drunkenness, sex – the introduction to Nancy makes for a powerful, provocative opening – and just as effectively employed during far subtler moments of communication between characters. There’s a gorgeous logic to the world of the play, and Box, Jackson and Bazzi navigate it deftly. Bazzi, too, is the perfect leavening agent throughout.

In order to fully appreciate the play, you might not want to come on a full stomach. There’s a joyful sequence in which the audience gets to sample vegie soup from Love Supreme, bread from Bourke Street Bakery and wine from Cellarmasters. It’s all in keeping with the story, and the ebullient spirit of that moment (and not just the free feed) is delightful.

Food is – the foodie analogies are irresistibly appropriate – a nourishing and tasty theatrical dish. And it’s moreish too: Belvoir, sensing what they’ve got, have justifiably extended the run by two weeks. So eat up.

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Words by Darryn King