Midsummer: A Banquet NYC Reviews and Tickets
Member Reviews (79)
See it if you want a charming evening in a unique environment. The performers sing dance act and serve food in Willem de Kooning"s former studio.
Don't see it if you dislike performances with multiple points of focus. While something's happening wherever you look, the plot doesn't get lost.
See it if you want to watch a scripted relay race where actors are obligated to divert focus from the play at hand to a lot of unrelated tasks
Don't see it if you need the performances/direction/aesthetic immersion to be strong & original enough to balance out a preponderance of gimmicky diversions Read more
Critic Reviews (11)
"Dinner theater is underrated…In a triumph of versatility, the eight performers in this inventive and delightfully madcap adaptation of Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' not only play its royals, lovers, faeries and rude mechanicals, but also serve a light and delicious five-course tasting menu throughout."
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"Shakespeare’s 'A Midsummer Night’s Dream,'...is already a sweet, toothsome morsel of theatre. This makes Food of Love Productions and Third Rail Projects’ immersive production of the play, accompanied by a multicourse tasting menu, delectable in more ways than one."
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"'Midsummer: A Banquet' — Though It Be But Little, It Is Fierce. Food of Love and Third Rail Projects coproduce a modest Midsummer Night's Dream at Café Fae."
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"If, like me, you grew up thinking of dinner theatre as rattletrap revivals of 'Any Wednesday' paired with steamship round of beef, you may be pleasantly surprised by the activities at Café Fae…There, a troupe of charming and talented young people are presenting a lively production of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' paired with a distinctive tasting menu."
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"'Midsummer: A Banquet' is an auditory and oral treat, a light entertainment for this time of year. Using Zach Morris and Victoria Rae Sook's skillfully adapted abridgment of Shakespeare's comedy, the evening of dinner theater is a delightful way to experience the Bard."
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"This may be a 'Midsummer Night's Dream' that prizes atmosphere above all else…Staging that's rambunctiously physical and borderline balletic…the food itself can threaten to upstage the play…but it shows the forest's generosity as a space to try on new attractions and new appearances."
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90% "An immersive staging of the Shakespeare comedy with a five-course tasting menu. Storytelling for and with at least five of the senses. 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' in every sense of the expression."
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"A wise theatre junkie once said to me that 'A Midsummers Night's Dream' is a play that either 'sings when it's good' or 'sinks easily when it's not.' And this co-production of Food of Love and Third Rail Projects...most magically and sweetly sings."
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“A dinner theater production that followers of Third Rail Projects are likely to find surprisingly ordinary… some fine and funny scenes. The cast is mostly but not uniformly fine, though, and there are only eight of them...some might wonder whether the ‘Banquet’ in the title is meant ironically.”
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A lively, charming, although not memorably spicy, production…Not a single line reading, pause, or gesture has been overlooked, an approach surely necessitated by the cramped, intimate quarters, but also one that reduces any spontaneity in the performances.
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"Zach Morris, who also choreographed, uses the small space very effectively…[Morris] has guided his performers to speak with unhurried clarity. There is scarcely a word lost, and ones that are familiar land with renewed freshness … Emilie Baltz has designed the meals-and you can come hungry."
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