It wasn’t hard to work out where the venue was – a stream of artistic types stood out like sore thumbs from the grime of Kingsland Road. We’d travelled to Dalston Kingsland in East London to see Leftovers, a play in a cafe, about typical London cafes. The real clincher was that for £10 we weren’t just getting entertainment – we were also being served a full English breakfast for dinner, as part of the performance.
The show’s creator, Mem Morrison, had grown up in a cafe run by his parents. Returning to his roots, he explores the cultural connotations of the traditional greasy spoon cafe in a show that is part sound installation, part dinner party, part social history, cultural exploration and solo performance.
Leftovers is supported by Arts Admin, and is a development of Mem’s earlier piece, Fuel, created for Home, London, 2004. For Fuel, Mem invited his family to help him create a performance in a domestic kitchen involving traditional Turkish Cypriot cooking and hospitality. This time, he’s invited the public into several cafes around London, before heading up to the Theatre Workshop in Edinburgh in August.
Greasy cafes usually open and close early, but Mem Morrison had convinced the Kingsland Cafe to host his sound installation and performance in the early evening. We took our seat at a formica table with roses, and a nice display of sauce and salt and pepper containers. A waitress instantly took our order – a choice between meat or vege breakfast, coffee or tea, and the sound of the coffee machine and the sizzle of eggs heralded the start of part one of the performance.
On one hand, it didn’t quite feel like a greasy caf, it was all too choreographed, and the audience didn’t match, but on the other hand it was hard to tell where the performance began and ended – were the kitchen staff part of the show? Mem had skilfully achieved one of the aims – to draw attention to the people behind one of London’s dying institutions: the greasy caf.
Mem himself, in starched white apron, shirt and tie, laid out cutlery and brought the meals. There was an expectant air, and the big white speakers on the outer tables suddenly crackled into life with the voices of old caf owners talking about their working lives. Diners stop talking, and after a while the muddled threads of stories began to captivate and all you could hear was the clatter of knives and forks shovelling eggs, chips and beans towards unforgiving arteries.
What began as a rambling gaggle of caf owners’ voices slowly began to emerge as a carefully edited sound installation. As we sat and listened strong personalities shone through in their own voices, talking about the blood, sweat and tears they’d put into their work, as well as the funny stories about owning and running their own cafe.
Like Mem, most of the voices were of Turkish Cypriot descent. The programme set up like a menu on each table told us that Leftovers is also being developed as a performance, sound and menu installation for greasy spoon cafes. Material is being collected as part of an audio project with Turkish Cypriot café owners in London.
It was when the recordings stopped and part two of the show began that the cafe really came to life. The staff finished cooking and watched from behind the counter. A slow starting monologue soon gathered momentum as Mem worked the tables, “eggs, bacon, chips, beans,” telling stories, anecdotes, jokes and touching memories of his childhood. We’d heard the cafe owners stories on tape, now the stories came to life with Mem’s own recollections. He handed out Turkish Delight and napkins with poetry printed on them. And the audience of 30 crammed around the tables were eating out of his hand – from old cafe owners to arts types.
As Mem’s performance hit fever pitch and he danced between the tables one of the caf’s regulars who had lost his place to the interloping audience, began banging on the windows, swearing and opened the door, yelling “why wasn’t I invited?” As the staff tried in vain to pacify him, Mem didn’t miss a beat, and quipped “all part of the show, he’s covered by equity”.
While Mem is quite the actor, his script was also perfectly pitched, witty, succinct, and smart enough to let the audience join the dots rather than ramming it down their throats. Carefully thought out and well-prepared, the cafe took on a personality all of its own, inviting us into what appear to be Mem’s passions: food, family, culture and theatre.
There’s something nice about the intimate surroundings of a caf, and being able to shake the hand of the actor/creator as you leave. Poignant, clever, and well-executed, Mem’s show is £10 well spent.
Leftovers runs from 20-25 August at Theatre Workshop in Edinburgh. Mem is also working on a performance called Ringside, about Turkish weddings, for 2008.
