Review: South Coast Repertory Presents World Premiere of EAT ME

First developed and workshopped at South Coast Repertory's annual Pacific Playwrights Festival in 2025, celebrated new "it" playwright Talene Monahon's freshly birthed play EAT ME is currently being presented at OC's Tony Award-winning regional theater as a fully-formed World Premiere production directed by Caitlin Sullivan. The new work continues performances at its Costa Mesa home through May 3.

Equally intriguing and confounding, the brand new play, honestly, comes off for me as one of those creatively-ambitious but somewhat incomplete stage experiments that left me with more questions than answers… almost to the point where I had to ask myself (and a few people around me) afterwards whether I understood all of it, or am I just too pedestrian of a theatergoer to "get it." 

From its purposely ambiguous, misdirection-prone dialogue to its starkly minimalist visual accoutrements that kept things mostly in the dark, the play feels like it had a lot to say, but decided to keep a lot of those words to itself rather than express them outright.

It's unfortunate, really, because the show—for all of its odd situations and head-scratching turns—employs a rather superb ensemble cast that truly showcased their individual acting talents, creating an atmosphere that enticed me enough to keep watching to see what happens next. While I was trying to hang on to their every word for dear life, their delivery and even subtle facial features and movements piqued my interest, keeping their characters worthy of investigating further.

From past experiences, World Premiere plays are usually forgivably imperfect works-in-progress, with visible ample room for improvement and further tweaking. That seems to be the case for this brand new play, which—after seeing it during its opening night performance—feels very much like (to keep using the play's food motif) an amuse-bouche to a later, more fully-cooked completed work. 

What Monahon serves up in the play in its current form is tantamount to a theatrical first course that has wickedly funny, quirky moments mixed in with intellectually provocative big ideas cast in shadow. It's a small dish that tantalizes with deceptively bold flavors yet isn't able to be fully gulped down as a satisfying dramatic main entrée.

What I did manage to surmise—and please forgive me if I'm just totally off base—is that the play, at its core, is a purposely eccentric, shape-shifting meditation on different people's voracious appetites—both literal and existential—that invites us into a surreal culinary bubble where hunger becomes identity, obsession, and, ultimately, the road to transformation. 

Or maybe the whole thing is just a surreal, umami-triggered dreamscape spinning around the mind of a guy that went through some kind of head trauma. To be honest, I'm still not that quite sure.

Don't get me wrong… there was a lot to like in what was presented, but I also couldn't help but feel very much like I had to work harder than I had to as an audience member to get to that sentiment.

To be fair, there is no denying Monahon's palpable audacity as a fresh voice in theater today. Like a daring, experimental chef deconstructing a tried and true recipe, she openly dismantles conventional narrative structure in EAT ME in favor of a more fluid, almost improvisational succession of moments. Here, we witness simultaneous scenes both peculiar or awkward, meta-theatrical commentary delivered by an omniscient online influencer, and surreal intrusions that evoke a kind of trippy descent into gastronomic absurdity—you know, the kind of foodie over-speak you hear via voiceover on an Instagram reel ecstatically praising a new food spot that is simply the latest trendy must-try.

What I did kind of glean from the play is its possible central metaphor—food consumption as both pleasure and, perhaps, even medicinal. If that is truly the play's raison d'être, then it certainly reiterates that EAT ME seems rich with potential and possibility, as it tries to tap into contemporary anxieties that include obsession, bodily autonomy, and the elusive pursuit of fulfillment. 

At the center of Monahon's play is Chris (the incredible Sheldon D. Brown), a once-stable lawyer whose life has been irrevocably altered by a sudden mysterious medical episode we don't learn about until half-way through the play—causing many to suspect if the play's strange machinations is entirely a visual, imagined manifestation of an internal mental issue. 

However, according to an interview with the author published in the program, the play grew out of Monahon's desire to set a play in the world of eating disorders, but settled on an anecdote she heard about someone suddenly developing "gourmand syndrome" a rare condition that pops up after suffering a head trauma, where those afflicted suddenly get the urge to obsess over gourmet cuisine.

So, thus, Chris' story in now a play. 

In the wake of Chris' traumatic event, we learn later from his very pregnant, often worried sister Beatrice (the grounded Kacie Rogers) that Chris has inexplicably decided to abandon his potentially lucrative law career—and contact with her—and instead has chosen to immerse himself daily in the org*smic pleasures of gourmet cuisine and fine dining, becoming a hermit and depleting his money along the way while frequenting an online Reddit group of anonymous like-minded foodie obsessives who hide behind avatars as they chase transcendence and euphoric nirvana through food adventures. 

Among those Reddit posters include a frequent contributor known simply as "The Gourmand" (represented in the flesh by the commanding Jeorge Bennett Watson) who often posts about the latest top-notch restaurants he visited that, as expected, piques Chris' FOMO curiosity. This enigmatic "Gourmand" often hovers over the action as a kind of omnipresent avatar of indulgence—taking shape interchangeably here and there as a restaurant's waiter or his more posh, hyperbolic online persona, seducing both characters and audience with the promise of fulfillment through one's taste buds. 

Early on we also learn that Chris now lives with Cindy (the compelling Anne Gee Byrd), an eccentric older woman whose own peculiar philosophies on consumption—ranging from indifference to food to a bizarre fixation on out-there bodily transformations—form a curious counterpoint to Chris' newfound, more refined indulgence. Why would an elderly cat-lady shut-in who lives like a hoarder want to take in a young gay man with expensive food taste as a roommate? Well… she claims he might be her next soulmate, the next one in line since her previous soulmate—her cat Milo—has just passed away.

The two swap stories and, uh, manifestos, I suppose, like normal roommates: he talks about his food and dating adventures outside their apartment, while she drones on about what her two remaining cats were up to that day. In one of the play's many misdirections, Cindy is first introduced to us with a long monologue about what we all assume must have been a late husband, when in fact it was all about her suddenly departed cat. While Chris indulges in haute cuisine, his much-older cohabitant fills her belly with diet soda and bits of salads (not too sure, but I think it's not farfetched to assume she might even indulge in her pets' canned cuisine from time to time).

In many instances throughout the play, Chris' sister Beatrice becomes the "voice of reason," and, therefore, our proxy, because, like us, she too is baffled by Chris' behavior that alludes to self-harm. Along with Beatrice's healthy-living-obsessed wife Jen (Carolyn Ratteray), Beatrice grows increasingly alarmed at his detachment from reality, fearing that his fixation on these culinary experiences signals a deeper, possibly more dangerous unraveling. 

And in one of the play's genuinely funniest lines, Chris' sister even points out what an odd couple they appear to be—of course, it does seem very weird to see a virile young black man in his prime deciding to abandon his life to be… uh, roommates with an old cantankerous white lady in her 60's who lives as a shut in watching TV and surrounding herself with multiple felines for companionship. 

Occasionally, the narrative splinters and overlaps in time and space, where we see Chris embarking on an awkward, tentative date with intriguingly odd duck Stevie (the adorable teddy bear Jake Borelli, fresh off multiple seasons on ABC's Grey's Anatomy), a similarly fractured soul and self-proclaimed practicing pescatarian, which Chris simultaneously recounts to Cindy as theatrical layering of scenes. 

As the play unfolds, its characters—each orbiting their own peculiar relationship to food, desire, and bodily change—search for something that will make them feel, well, "full." 

Chris, in particular, emerges as a haunting figure. His transformation from pragmatic professional to sensual hedonist hints at both a newfound liberation and a quiet despair that's eating him from the inside. Even with the more effervescent Stevie entering his periphery as a possible forever paramour, Chris is too easily distracted with keeping things pointed to his foodie obsessions to open his heart to romance. 

Cindy, on the other hand, provides some of the play's most arrestingly bizarre—and darkly comic—musings on human/feline/armadillo mortality and physical transformation, even as she mostly elicits pity from those who may see her as a cautionary tale about the long-term effects of loneliness.

Overall, EAT ME has an interesting foundation, but does feel like disparate ingredients haphazardly thrown into the pot to see what tastes good after they cook for a bit. There is no denying that Monahon has a knack for structural experimentation, but her loose, improvisational-like imagination also proves to be the play's primary courier for confusion. Scenes drift rather than build; emotional stakes are introduced only to evaporate before they can fully land. The play circles its central questions with a big yellow highlighter: What does it mean to be satisfied? What are we truly consuming? Is satiation impossible to achieve? But she encircles these without ever quite finishing them. As a result, the audience is left nibbling at intriguing morsels rather than digesting a fully-realized dramatic meal.

Visually, the production's subdued… well… everything feels too austere (from Nicholas Ponting's minimalist set design to Isabella Byrd's too-dark dramatic lighting), thumping the audience over the head to remind them this is super moody and draped in mystery and intrigue. A bit of theatrical magical is introduced in the last few minutes of the play which made me smile, if only to experience something different than the first 90 minutes we spent with what seems like just a lone high-beam flashlight in a darkened hallway.

On my way out of the theater, I overheard one patron sum up her sentiments quite succinctly to her companion: "What just happened?" 

If even a few people feel this way, then it might be time for it to go back into the oven and cook a bit longer.

Still, there is something undeniably compelling about the ambition on display. Even in its most confounding speeches and exchanges, EAT ME crackles with the restless excitement of a fresh theatrical voice pushing against the boundaries of theatrical expectations and traditions. It may not yet achieve the narrative clarity or emotional cohesion we all want in our plays, but this work-in-progress definitely indicates someone unafraid to take risks—even if those risks cause many to walk away scratching their heads.

In the end, EAT ME is less a full-course meal than a new experimental tasting menu—provocative, peculiar, and, at times, confusing, frustrating and perplexing. One may leave the theater not entirely satiated, but, perhaps, maybe hungry for more.

** Follow this reviewer on Bluesky / Instagram / Twitter X / Threads: @cre8iveMLQ **

-----

Photos by Scott Smeltzer, courtesy of South Coast Repertory.

Performances of Talene Monahon's EAT ME at South Coast Repertory continue through May 3, 2026. Tickets can be purchased online at www.scr.org, by phone at (714) 708-5555 or by visiting the box office at 655 Town Center Drive in Costa Mesa.