The Lobster considers

Show & Culture

In a government-certified kitchen set in an unspecified but near future, food consumption has been bureaucratised and pleasure is administratively inconvenient. Every morning, State Points Auditor Vetch checks the cauldron’s water temperature when Citizen M comes to claim her lobster, earned through Alimentary Merit Points. As she hopes to finally feel something, Vetch’s long-closeted desires surface. The Lobster, sitting in a pot of water, refuses to boil properly and tries to determine whether they can feel something when boiled alive. Loosely inspired by David Foster Wallace’s essay Consider the Lobster, this dystopian musical kaleidoscope explores ethics and consumerism, pleasure and restraint, and the mechanisms of convenient uncertainty behind many life choices. Anne Simon tackles the subject in an entertaining, grotesque and discursive manner.