The Cafe du Grand Boeuf is not only the best restaurant in 1961 Paris but perhaps in the world. It exists only to serve multimillionaire Victor. Chef Gaston and maître d’Claude with his waitress wife, Mimi, keep always ready for their boss’ arrival. Claude is training Antoine to replace a waiter who died.
In from a Madrid sojourn with customary companion Mademoiselle (a.k.a. Miss Berger), comes a sad, weary Victor. Alone. He announces he is going to starve himself to death at his dinner table.
The staff’s major attempt to lure Victor into eating is to create in the kitchen an ultimate meal. Each course, described in luscious detail, is presented on an empty plate. Wine is appropriate but uncorked. All the while Victor serves up, as if in courses, his obituary to aspiring journalist Antoine. It’s intended to be biographically detailed, unlike newspaper coverage of Ernest Hemingway, his idol, who just died.
Hemingway (highlighted in photos over the Cafe kitchen door), of course, began as a journalist but went on to flourish writing fiction as realistic as facts. Victor identifies with Hemingway hero Jake’s (physically impotent) love for the gorgeous Lady Brett – a parallel to Mademoiselle.
At a Madrid bullfight such as Hemingway loved, Victor looked on what he thought was a “Death in the Afternoon” situation. (Patrick Ryan Sullivan is riveting as he describes and reenacts it.) After a breakup with Mademoiselle, also involving death, he decided on his own demise.
As Victor’s dictation, a feast of words liberally spiced with quotations from Hemingway, gets ever darker, his staff’s relationships come to light. Mimi’s love for husband Claude has become unrequited, while Gaston seems to love her as much as he does his culinary creations.
The atmosphere is decidedly existential as Victor prepares for his “no exit” and his servers plot to get him to end all less painfully. Then Mademoiselle enters with her own plan and other revelations come to light so . . . Before its end, An Empty Plate in the Café du Grand Boeuf includes species of farce, drama, comedy, mystery, absurdism and tragicomedy. Patrick Ryan Sullivan’s Victor goes forcefully through them all.
Good acting also makes the stereotyped staff enjoyable. Greyson Lewis memorably sets nerves on end as stuttering Antoine. He’s funny also offering an infinitesimal repertoire on his tuba. Despite some outbursts, Natalie Symons’ Mimi credibly matches Victor’s vulnerability. John Lombardi handles Gaston’s important dialogue with finesse, while Matthew McGee wrings pathos from Claude’s suffering chef.
Unfortunately, Roxanne Fay doesn’t measure up to the part of Mademoiselle/Miss Berger in looks or age. Nor does she project vocally, betraying her brief but important role. This problem is the only shortcoming in Eric Davis’ astute direction.
Having the cafe on a strip from entrance to kitchen door with the audience seated on each side in tiers avoids having to set up an extravagant interior with surrounding walls. The elegant central table and settings perfectly convey the atmosphere, and lighting of surrounding points creates other narration/performance spaces.
Michael Hollinger’s plate at his Grand Boeuf, a place that’s exactly the opposite of the phenomenon in the French film titled with a homonym of that name, is anything but empty. It’s full of cleverly cooked up treats, especially for connoisseurs of dramatic and Hemingway’s literature.
