An Empty Plate in the Café Du Grand Boeuf @ Circle Theatre
—Jan Farrington
Circle Theatre and the much-produced playwright Michael Hollinger have a long relationship. He’s become a go-to writer for the company, which since 2009 has successfully produced a string of his plays (Incorruptible, Opus, Ghost-Writer, Hope and Gravity, Under the Skin). Circle’s latest Hollinger, An Empty Plate in the Café Du Grand Boeuf, certainly has charming and quirkily funny moments—but Hollinger can do better.
First of all, it was grand to be back in the bunker—Circle’s warm, familiar basement-level space in downtown Fort Worth, complete with chunky pillars always decorated for the play at hand (this time with the Parisian restaurant logo, complete with the “Big Ox” of the title). Set designer Donald Jordan’s rendering of a small French café had the warm woods and deep colors, the pair of farce-ready swinging doors, the buffet laden with bottles and bins (thumbs-up to Kaitlin Hatton’s props) ready to enhance any dish.
And the premise is promising. In the Paris of 1961, an absurdly wealthy American expat is coming to dinner at the Café. He owns it. He’s the only person (along with a certain “Mademoiselle”) who ever dines there. The staff exists only to serve him…dinner. Or presumably, breakfast and lunch. At any time of the day or night, as they explain to a new young waiter. (What, do they live in the building?)
So here he is, the “Monsieur,” spouting quotes from his idol Hemingway and declaring he doesn’t want a thing, thank you. He’s there on a mission: to sit at his own table, in his own restaurant, and starve himself to death.
Ben Phillips is the Monsieur, a kid from Cleveland who fell in love with Hemingway’s prose and became a journalist in imitation of the Great Man (who, adding to Monsieur’s woes, has just killed himself back in Idaho). He’s a foodie with a belly-full of drama to digest, and Phillips’ challenge is to veer from depressed to farcical to sobs to food lust in an instant, and make us believe it. Patrick Bynane is the hyper-dedicated maître d’ Claude, with Ana Hagedorn as his sexy (and neglected) waitress wife Mimi. They are the bickering Punch and Judy of the piece, he all nerves, she with a chin in the air. Both are elegant at the table but spitting mad behind the scenes.
Chef Gaston (J.R. Bradford) is mad (in another way) about Mimi and fierce about his cooking skills. He watches the goings-on with crossed arms and sardonic eyes that peer out from under his chef’s toque. Fabian Cortina (amusingly jumpy) plays new hire Antoine, who stutters (sigh), and aspires to be a “journo” like Monsieur. And Julie K. Rhodes is the clear-eyed Mademoiselle, whose absence is felt through the play—until, late in the game, she arrives in style.
As the plot thickens, Claude has a save-the-day thought. He’ll describe the five-star menu to Monsieur in glowing terms, “plate by plate, a feast of adjectives and adverbs”—and make him choose to eat, and live. Wackiness ensues, and the talented cast under director Tim Long tries hard to keep the laughs and energy coming.
Yet somehow, the soufflé falls a bit flat. Hollinger’s script isn’t sure what it wants to be. A high-camp hommage to French farce? An Absurdist look at how life always, finally, leaves us in the lurch? The story arc of a man in despair who might find a reason to live? Yes, a bit of all that—but the script’s multiple and shifting tones would be hard to handle for any cast or director.
And perhaps it’s me, in part—farce (or even farce-adjacent) never has been my theatrical jam. If it sounds like yours, chug a glass of champagne, grab a seat, and let this wacky story give you an evening in Paris. Bon appétit!
WHEN: Through April 2
WHERE: Circle Theatre, downtown Fort Worth
WEB: circletheatre.com
