While Dinner and Delusion is heavily based on B-movie aesthetics, its presentation is inherently theatrical. Perhaps the greatest joke of all about the play is that it is an opera, which, by taking the highest form of elegance in culture and bringing it to the lowest, adds the same kind of touch as casting James Bond schlockmeister Timothy Dalton in the action movie spoof Hot Fuzz.
Yet, with B-movies, which are projected on a screen, the badness is easy to hide from. I’ve never been a fan of the beautiful train wreck theory of aesthetics—to me, the number of people killed by a horrific tragedy overwhelms the (normally false) sense of beauty the onlooker feels. Yet, I found myself rubbernecking constantly throughout Dinner and Delusion, mainly because I had never seen this kind of mindset applied to theater in such a manner. Maybe that’s why the Bad Movie aesthetic was once so appealing, before Showtime started to use Razzie award victories in ads promoting I Know Who Killed Me. Maybe it was the fact that I was in an altered state from two Seders I had attended in the nights before I saw Dinner and Delusion. But either way, through the power of theater, confusing the dream and reality in Dinner and Delusion clicked. I left the theater wondering which was the right choice: the dinner or the delusion? An awesome work of art, or the worst work of art I’ve ever seen? Or perhaps, Sheldon’s choice at the end of Act I: your mother’s kosher chicken, or massive quantities of LSD?
Dinner and Delusion - Music by Michael Sahl; Libretto by Nancy Manocherian; directed by Kira Simring; musical direction by Djordje Stevan Nesic; costume, prop design by Hilary Krishnan; lighting/scenic design by John Hurley. Photo by the cell theatre.
Starring Demetrios Bonaros (Sheldon), Blythe Gaissert (Auntie Rose/Eden West/Rose), Philip Callen (Bernie/Baruch/Timothy Leary), Peter Clark (Morris/Mike/Freud), Jessica Medoff Bunchman (Millie/Mindy/Disciple), Vivian Krich-Brinton (Sarah/Sara/Disciple), and Christopher Herbert Director (Elijah/Osho).
Dinner and Delusion played at the cell theatre (338 W. 23rd Street) from Thursday, April 9-Saturday, April 11.
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