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Culture Stage

Preview: A Taste Of Empire

A TASTE OF EMPIRE by Jovanni Sy, directed by Guillermo Verdecchia (Cahoots). At the Market Kitchen, St. Lawrence Market (93 Front East). Previews from Tuesday (June 29), opens July 6 and runs to July 24, Tuesday-Saturday 8 pm (no show July 17). $30- $40, previews $20-$30. totix.ca. See listing.


Jovanni Sy’s solo show a taste of Empire provides audience with some gourmet nibblies as well as food for thought.[rssbreak]

Sy plays a sous chef named Jovanni employed by fictional megastar chef Maximo Cortés, who runs restaurants with names like Il Duce and Warlord. A cuisine master to the stars, Cortés also offers cooking demos.

Filling in for his tardy employer, Jovanni begins preparing a Filipino fish dish, rellenong bangus (stuffed milkfish) the viewers are connoisseurs dying for a taste of the master’s cooking. In the process, the underling holds forth on politics, colonialism and haves versus have-nots.

“Initially I thought the show would be plotless and meta-theatrical, only about the text’s ideas,” says Sy, former artistic director of Cahoots.

“It contained important information but wasn’t working dramatically. Now, with the character of Jovanni, there’s some silly fun the ideas are conveyed through witty, edgy satire.”

Jovanni looks at the situation of a Filipino fisherman, initially self-employed but now working for a large factory. That means everything is cheaper for the consumer, but the workers are worse off.

Breaking the spine of the fish he’s preparing offers an uncomfortable parallel to how the fisherman is treated.

“Jovanni is a man-child, a worker who rarely sees the light of day, parroting the information fed him by his master,” offers Sy.

“But he changes, kind of like Mickey Mouse in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, when he starts to question what he’s doing and how he’s been treated.”

Download associated audio clip.

From the beginning of the project, Sy wanted to perform in a venue other than a theatre. It’s going up in the upscale Market Kitchen.

“The more the surroundings are a foodie paradise, the better,” he smiles, dressed for rehearsal in his starched chef whites. “Exposed brick and fine blond wood set the ambience. A really good kitchen says luxury and comfort in a way that a theatre rarely can.”

The show’s impetus came from Sy’s watching the theatricality of teppanyaki and sushi chefs and noticing that diners were mesmerized.

“I often watch the Food Channel and love the creature comforts of haute cuisine,” he admits. “But I know that when people take a bite of food, they make a bunch of invisible choices with political implications.

“The food industries, networked around the world, do their best to make those implications invisible. A Taste Of Empire doesn’t tell people they’re wrong, but it does ask them to think about the repercussions of what they eat.”

And the preparation of food during a show, notoriously a hard thing to pull off? So far, no major malfunctions – no cuts, burns or fires.

Download associated audio clip.

Reactions to the workshops have been diverse, just as Sy expected, and he hopes to draw both theatre and gourmet audiences to his production.

“Some people say they were really disturbed, others that they were really hungry. Each is dead on. You can feel both at the same time, since food can suggest something both guilty and pleasurable.”

Additional Interview Clip

Jovanni Sy as writer in residence at the Shaw Festival

Download associated audio clip.

jonkap@nowtoronto.com

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