Supper drama

Actors at a rehearsal for Food Stories

Growing up, mealtime meant storytime for Tardeo-based theatre practitioner Amey Mehta. The 33-year-old remembers nudging his grandmother, in her Goa home, for tales of chicken and bull fights to gulp down veggies. "My grandmother would tell me about ghosts in the village who might catch me if I didn't eat!" Mehta laughs. These drama-laced memories pepper the theatre-maker's new production, Food Stories: A Supper Theatre Play, which opens this weekend.

Blending the worlds of theatre and food, the production features four short plays written by four writers, which will unravel in the midst of a restaurant. Each act will be followed by an inspired course, curated by a chef of the eatery to complement the performances. Mehta shares that the production, which he conceived before the pandemic, was supposed to premiere in 2020. "I'm a big foodie and a theatre practitioner. So, I wanted to combine these two passions and create an experience in which theatre and food are incomplete without each other," he explains.

The four stories are all quite different from each other, and food is what binds them together. "My only brief to the writers was that I don't want the stories to be about food, but they should revolve around food," Mehta tells us. On cue, the plays span a range of themes, from a critic and a chef locking horns over the correct recipe of sambar, to the friendship that sparks off between a nutritionist and her client over diet fads, to the journey of a grandmother's mutton curry recipe. "There's also a story about three SoBo-ites who've come to visit their friend's widow and can't stop talking about their diets, which tea they had in London and which muffin they sampled in New York! We've all met such people in our lives," Mehta says.

Amey Mehta

The opening shows will be staged at The Sassy Spoon and Ishaara but Mehta hopes to take the production to other restaurants, hotels, farmhouses and similar informal set-ups in the future. "So much has happened in the past two years. I want to give people an evening where they eat, laugh, socialise and build a community," he signs off.

On the menu

The chefs at the two restaurants have whipped up delicacies to pair with the stories, such as soft shell saffron tacos, mutton pepper fry on mini Malabari parathas, quinoa pani puri, kheema pav, pav bhaji, gulab jamun panna cotta and rasmalai saffron mousse, among other dishes.

On: May 22, 7.30 pm (The Sassy Spoon) and May 26, 8.30 pm (Ishaara)
At: The Sassy Spoon, Nariman Point and Ishaara, Lower Parel
Log on to: in.bookmyshow.com
Cost: Rs 3,499