Inside 'Queen of the Night,' NYC's Decadent Dinner Theater
It's difficult to describe what's happening right now at the newly revived Diamond Horseshoe Theater, in the basement of New York's Paramount Hotel. Cliché as it sounds, you have to experience it to understand it. Yet Queen of the Night, a circus performance-cum-interactive experience-cum-family-style meal, which is currently in previews but opens officially later this month, might seem a bit familiar. It's a natural extension of what's swept the city (and elsewhere) in the last decade: the countless supper clubs; the dark, at times deranged burlesque of the Box; and the kind of immersive theater epitomized by the brilliant Sleep No More. This new show weds all these things.
Unlike Sleep No More (whose producer, Randy Weiner, is a producer of Queen of the Night), this includes a meal. After inventive cocktails by Bryan Woolley comes a truly excellent classic American spread by chef Jason Kallert. The artist Jennifer Rubell, whose work frequently incorporates food and drink, is one of the performance's directors. With Kallert she's dreamed up a feast that's far from ordinary: hulking main courses are served communally in unusual ways. To get a taste of everything, diners must beg, barter with, or steal from other tables. Rubell describes the experience she aims to create as "really, really visceral." As she explains, "I think with sex, a lot of people look at something and their body reacts; I wanted to do this with food." Get a taste of the night in our slideshow. (If you're planning to attend, be warned there are a few spoilers ahead.)
1/9Picture yourself in a theater in a basement. You've elbowed past the Times Square throngs to queue up on 46th Street outside the Paramount Hotel. You've descended a silvery stairway to the building's depths and suddenly you're in a different world whose subdued lighting is a contrast to the neon above. The first thing you spot is the bar—more like the laboratory of some booze-addled mad scientist—complete with large glass vessels in several shapes, ferrying delicious-looking fluids through a series of tubes.
2/9Laid out before you is an invitation in the form of glasses: flutes filled with a ruby-colored hibiscus tipple, cut-glass tumblers holding something made with bourbon and ginger, and coupes draped intriguingly in strands of rosemary, which you can see bartenders charring with a blowtorch a few feet away. You grab one of the latter and taste gin mingled with herbal and smoky notes. As the alcohol starts to hit you, and you stand for a moment taking in this blue-tinged, hazy world, you feel yourself being transported.
3/9Around you, something is beginning. A show of sorts. You gaze out across a dining room laid with towering tablescapes of stacked glasses and cascading fruit. A naked woman, ineffectually veiled by red organza, writhes on a platform as spotlights caress her. The music is loud and pulsing. The mood, as guests continue to file in, grows increasingly voyeuristic.
4/9You've just popped a canapé in your mouth (a gougère topped with foie gras, brandied cherry jam, and a tiny flower), when a tall man with striking, smoky eyes suddenly grabs your hand. You glimpse his bare back as he leads you across the room, squiring you in a half circle around a central raised stage, where he commands you to stop. He places a shard of mirror in your hand and instructs you to watch. Behind you, in the glass, an acrobat dressed in white catches your eye, then begins flipping; you glance around and understand this show is just for you. Then it's over, and he too takes your hand. "I asked him to bring you," he tells you sotto voce, and you shiver.
5/9Somewhat disoriented, you stumble to a far corner of the theater, still clutching your cocktail, and into a smaller room. Another black-and-white-clad man grabs you by the shoulders and gently positions you facing a table. As two women snap plastic over it, a topless girl does a handstand, then two minions position a large black egg between her legs. As the spectators lining the room gaze in horror and fascination, she brings her legs swiftly together and the egg's copious contents runs out between then. Suddenly there's a sound, and the black-and-white clad people are crying, "The Queen! The Queen!" You're pushed out to the central theater, where her majesty, the Marchesa, stands on the stage in a magnificent blue cape.
6/9It's time to sit. Again you're led by the hand, not understanding what's happening until your usher (in the same black-and-white halter outfit, which you've learned is by the fashion designer Thom Browne) deposits you at an oval-shaped table next to strangers (you've come alone, though some groups of friends sit together). There are carafes of wine and water on the table, and glasses, metal plates, fork and knives that must be parceled out to diners. You see bowls of bright kale salad and pans of scalloped potatoes. Above you, contortionists clad in almost nothing twist on hoops hanging from the ceiling while others roll about the stage. Then the food parade begins.
Matt Duckor7/9Servers in crisp white shirts stream out from the wings carrying dishes you very much want to land on your table: Suckling pigs on spits, their skin loose and crackly; steamed lobsters in birdcages, like something from Alice in Wonderland's meal with the Queen of Hearts; and mighty slabs of beef on wooden boards, surrounded by rounds of marrow bone. Two of these whole short ribs land in front you, and a server explains to your group that if you want the other main courses, you're going to have to beg, barter, or steal from other tables. You eye another table's plump lobster out of the corner of your eye, and know you must obtain some somehow. (Next to you, a vegetarian digs into a steamer basket of tofu and vegetables.)
8/9The show begins on the raised stage in front of you. A fantastical performance that's loosely based on Mozart's The Magic Flute. There's the cold and sylphlike Marchesa, whom a short man in a tight-fitting gray suit (another Thom Browne design) presents to the audience, pouring her wine into a glass that seems suspended in midair. Also the lovely Pamina, whose flirtation with two men and subsequent deflowering by one of them is the central element of the plot. You're torn between the delicious food on your plate (including some lobster you've managed to score) and the drama unfolding in front of you, aided by members of the 7 Fingers circus troupe from Montreal, who leap and flip in seemingly impossible ways.
9/9The meal is over all too soon. Every inch of it is choreographed, including the cleanup, as yet more staffer-performers whisk around you with cloths and brooms. Guests, too, are invited to take part by chucking their metal plates and the silvery salads bowls into white metal bins, producing a resounding thud. It's oddly cathartic and joyful, as the cheering, high-fiving waitstaff eggs diners on. You're whisked up by a circus performer dressed in blue, and the evening ends with a dance, like the last few minutes of a homecoming formal. The icing on the night is dessert, a scoop of chocolate cake offered in a silver spoon as you stand in place, close your eyes, and open your mouth. Like the rest of this unexpected evening, all you have to do is submit.
