The Lobster considers

Show & Culture

In a government-certified kitchen, food consumption has been bureaucratised and pleasure is administratively inconvenient. Every morning, State Points Auditor Vetch checks the water temperature of the cauldron when Citizen M comes to claim her lobster, earned through Alimentary Merit Points. While she hopes to finally feel something, Vetch’s fears of uncontrolled desire rise to the surface. In its pot, the Lobster refuses to boil properly and tries to determine whether it can feel anything while being boiled alive. Loosely inspired by David Foster Wallace’s essay Consider The Lobster, this play forms a dystopian musical kaleidoscope about ethics and consumerism, pleasure and restraint, and the mechanisms of convenient uncertainty that shape our choices. Anne Simon addresses the subject in a grotesque, entertaining and discursive style.