It's no surprise that as Covid restrictions are easing around the world, people are seeking new experiences to pluck themselves from mundanity, and to see, touch, smell and taste things in ways that awaken them. Why sit inside a theatre when you can walk around an art space or a neighbourhood while stories are spoken into your ears? Why only eat in cafes and restaurants when you can do that and watch a scene of a play unfold? Why dine in a restaurant when you can dine in an old airplane and participate in strange, semi-religious rituals?
We all want to be transported in some way or another by art. And that's what Throw BKK, an experiential performing arts group founded in 2020, wants to do with their third offering, 2046: The Greater Exodus. Where does 2046: The Greater Exodus want to transport us to? To 24 years into the future, when a group of people have been selected to travel to another planet to build a utopian society.
How are we getting there? In an airplane, literally. Except we're supposed to think of it as a spaceship. The performance takes place as part of a fine-dining experience at Na-Oh restaurant, housed in a converted airplane at ChangChui Creative Park. ChangChui, a brainchild of Somchai Songwattana of Thai fashion brand FLYNOW, is a wildly eclectic little market dotted with food vendors, restaurants, clothing stores, and performance spaces. Its main feature is, of course, this giant airplane.
Throw BKK, in collaboration with Studio11206, has worked the space into the storyline. The décor of the restaurant itself makes for the perfect setting of a post-apocalyptic world: massive glass cases with stuffed endangered animals, like a polar bear and its cub and an eland. We're in a Noah's Ark of sorts.
The performance begins with a ride up the elevator, followed by a cleansing ritual at a fountain. We clean our hands and receive a drop of liquid in our mouth (something oddly familiar and delicious). A baptism for a new life in a new world.
Biblical references abound here.
If at one point you are selected to go down to the belly of the plane, you'll find even more taxidermy animals there, beautifully showcased and lit in a glass case. In front of the animal exhibit, a young man and a young woman, dressed in white (think the more conservative version of Leeloo's bandage costume in The Fifth Element), engage in a silent dance. Our Adam and Eve. So there's the Garden of Eden as well. You'll meet a woman there -- both seer and snake -- reading your fortune and tempting you with a box of shiny pink gelatinous apples that burst with sweet juice when you bite into them.
We've just escaped a disaster. We're about to embark on a journey to the Promised Planet. We're going to build another paradise. That means we're most certainly going to witness another fall of man.
The setup is indeed intriguing. But once we're seated and the dinner gets rolling, it's as if the directors (Nualpanod Nat Khianpukdee and Jenwit Narukatpichai) didn't manage to figure out what to do with the performance and how it would fit in with the act of dining. There are actors walking around the restaurant or performing in one of the empty glass cases. There are hidden areas reserved for one-on-one interactions with the performers. But when you're at your table, the main characters are running political campaigns and come around to diners and audience members to promote themselves and discredit other candidates. Some performers act like tour guides, setting the scene, bringing the decorative pieces in the restaurant into the storyline.
Having performers intermittently coming up to you to deliver a brief monologue, offer snippets of information or ask you questions simply isn't effective storytelling. The interaction between the performers and diners is awkward. And awkwardness is partly to be expected with interactive performances, but in the fine-dining context, it makes the dining part unpleasant.
Another performance aspect that doesn't fit with fine dining is live music with a singer performing operatic renditions of pop songs.
As expected, the situation on the spaceship descends into chaos. So does the concept of the show. Out of nowhere, two actors emerge to perform a scene from Macbeth. The best-written scene in the show, make no mistake. And to be fair, the best acting from Wannasak Sirilar and Suphasawatt Purnaveja. The show gets even more perplexing from there -- a long stretch of no performance before a twist ending. Perhaps we are in the Tower of Babel, and the artists are playing God, purposefully confusing us with wildly different languages of theatre.
Apart from being in the same space and happening simultaneously, the dining and the performance feel conceptually divorced from each other. Every element of dining is an art form in itself, not only the culinary part. The front-of-house service has long required hosts and servers to be performative in carrying out their duties. Beloved dining establishments, from high-end to budget, have colourful "characters" that regulars know and love, from chefs to hosts to servers.
Although the quality of service can still be lacking even in Michelin-starred restaurants in Thailand, some fine-dining establishments have tapped into the performative potential of cooking and serving to offer a more intimate and novel experience -- starting off the dinner with a kitchen visit where a dish is created live for the diners, or choreographed and synchronised serving of each course, for example.
It's quite disappointing that the servers at Na-Oh are not incorporated into the performance at all. They're efficient and polite, but they're there just to bring food and clear the plates. They don't even tell us about the amuse-bouche or the drinks that are not listed on the menu. I blame this oversight less on the artists and more on the restaurant that doesn't seem to see the importance of training their staff to be knowledgeable about the food they serve or the importance of their work to the dining experience. But this mentality is unfortunately not uncommon in the Thai restaurant industry.
In fact, no one seems to know much about the food being served, not even the theatre artists, because most items on the menu have nothing to do with the story.
With all the Biblical references and the post-apocalypse storyline, I'm guessing this dining experience is supposed to signify the Last Supper. But where is the sense of sacredness and togetherness from the dining experience? Where is the unity between the performance and the dining service?
In cultures across the world, there has always been a sacred dimension in food and the act of eating, whether alone or together, whether with familiars or strangers, whether at home or elsewhere. Eating is part of our daily ritual. In this show, we get a sense of sacredness and ritual only at the beginning and the end. And those ceremonies are treated with a sense of irony: religion will be the end of us stupid humans.
At the final supper with his apostles, Jesus begins the meal by breaking the bread that is then shared with his closest of men. He goes on to predict how Judas will betray him and how Peter will deny knowing him. Today, to "break bread with someone" means not only to eat with them, but also to have a bonding experience with them.
As a story, 2046: The Greater Exodus knows only of betrayal, chaos and collapse. As a dining and immersive theatre experience, it overlooks the significance of the Last Supper and the act of breaking bread -- the sacred and the performative in everyday actions. Perhaps it never comes together as an experience because it doesn't understand what holds things together.
2046: The Greater Exodus runs until June 26 from 7 to 10pm at Na-Oh, ChangChui Creative Park. Tickets are 2,750 baht (four-course), 4,950 baht (six-course with two cocktails), and 6,380 baht (eight-course with four wine pairings), exclusive of tax and service. Tickets are available at Eventpop or by calling 08-8612-2188. Reservations only.
