Your Chicago Guide’s ticket to the viewing of Field of Flesh courtesy of Derek Spencer and Leisure Chicago.
Theatermaker Derek Spencer, in partnership with Leisure, premiered Field of Flesh, an original immersive performance. The fully interactive show seats a small audience at an overflowing dinner table with a cast of loosely-connected family members. Dinner is about to be served, but between the cognitive decline and Tik Tok brainrot, no one seems to remember why they are together, who’s cooking, or how they are all related. Through parodic exchanges with the audience, the performers perforate the boundaries between flesh and food, other and self, care and codependency. Meanwhile old age and death loom large in the corner. Ultimately, Field of Flesh asks whether our culinary culture supports us in moments of crisis, and how we might rid ourselves of an anxious attachment to tradition and nostalgia.
The performance was conceived by Derek Spencer and devised by an ensemble cast with generous support from Leisure. Development was further supported by the OBRAS Foundation. It is Spencer’s Chicago directorial debut.
Says Spencer: “We are all fundamentally delusional. Our consciousness makes us feel individual — special and separate from our environment. And yet we know we’re porous creatures who spray each other with spit particles, cultivate biomes in our gut, and can’t stop repeating words we learned on the internet. We navigate this dissonance by cultivating further delusions: ideological, narrative, consumptive, and so on.
Death is the ultimate release from delusion and dissonance. But for the living, death is nourishment. We pull the other inside ourselves for safekeeping and physically process the body as a way of mentally processing grief and impermanence.
We are always watching each other die — sometimes slowly, sometimes rapidly. Someday we’ll all be nothing but dust and digital ghosts. But while we are here, all stuck as actors in each other’s waking dreams, I’d like to toast to the pleasures of delusion, long may they last.”
This odd dinner party (hint: no food is actually served, though wine toasts are many) is equal parts Mad Hatter’s tea time and One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest insanity. Being placed right in the middle of the action, the audience develops an intimate connection to the characters. Some of them are likable, some detestable, all are intriguing. Be prepared to be engaged, both verbally and physically, as the audience comes in with roles quietly assigned. Physical touch is disclosed prior to the show, and is optional (I wore a sticker to indicate my choice to abstain from physical contact).
I don’t wish to give away the details of this strangely compelling theatrical experience that ends up in an even stranger communion-type ritual. But hey, who isn’t a fan of oddities? Let’s make Chicago theatre weird again! Grab a ticket, find your seat at the Field of Flesh table, and enjoy the ride!
Field of Flesh is now playing through the end of September at Leisure Chicago, in the heart of Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood. Precise location is emailed to the guests after ticket purchase. Tickets are very limited and available here.