←Recommendations of The Feast

Included in the Angels Theatre Company's Salon Reading Series 2019: Song’s The Feast is an exploration of de-civilization that returns human beings to a primal urge to consume. What is remarkable is not the speed at which civilization breaks down, but the inherent fragility of civilization that holds humanity together. It takes little to crumble the artifice of manners. A crisis of supply and permission to allow one’s mind to wander is all it takes for the events of The Feast to set into motion. And, once in motion, the characters are alternatively unable or unwilling to stop it.

This is a wonderful, weird, "run as fast as you can to keep up with it" play about what humans are made of and what we do with that information. It is claustrophobic and meaty, and presents us with a dinner party so absurd and awful as to be perfectly reflective of us as a species.

A delightfully absurdist piece about the ugly urges that exist in society. The playwright does a wonderful job making the world believable, yet true to its heightened permissions. It is definitely a piece that warrants quite a discussion after reading or watching.

I like to think of Celine Song as a better version of Wallace Shawn, always taking on the large issues of civilization and how we are - or aren't - human - or the nature of humanity itself - and this play proves my thesis once again. I love her work, the language choices she makes, the rhythms and the way she draws our eyes to notice what we would typically miss. She is one of the best reasons Plato has to kill all the poets! Long live Celine Song!

This is my favorite kind of play. It begins with a primal urge, simple, even absurd. This want, desire, goal drills its way through everybody; through the hole, it drags their politics, their fear, their shame. The entire ecosystem of an immediate society collapses because of humanity's astonishing ability for inhumanity. We come to the theatre to ponder and commune over this, it would seem, inherent inability, then leave with an effort to rectify it. This's the best full-length I read on NPX in 2017, with impressively natural dialogue. If I had a company, it'd be next in the season.