ABSTRACT
Food has always been present in U.S. theatres, whether shared to facilitate community, sold by producers as a way to increase income, or weaponized to demonstrate disgust. Yet its presence in theatres has always been fraught, too. In a recent issue of American Theatre dedicated to food, theatre critic Mark Blankenship asserts, “Whatever we consume at our seats or in the lobby, it’s traditionally been tangential to what’s happening on stage” (26). But is food consumption really “tangential” to the theatre experience-a mere distraction from what we witness on stage? On the contrary, from the eighteenth century to the present, food has been absolutely integral to the New York City theatre experience-whether brandished notoriously or consumed surreptitiously. For many, a night out at the theatre is incomplete without reservations at a restaurant before or after a performance, a sojourn at the lobby bar, or a large handbag containing contraband refreshments for stealthy consumption. Spectators have nibbled, imbibed, even hurled food and drink from their seats in a wide variety of venues. And in recent years, spectators at Broadway houses owned by commercial juggernauts have even found themselves encouraged to consume snacks and drinks at their seats. Critics’ and bloggers’ complaints about comestibles reveal that classoriented anxieties often coalesce around the “problem” of food consumption in the city’s theatres; yet their commentary bears curious similarities to that of nineteenth-and early twentieth-century theatregoers.
