Le Dîner

Part Festen, part A Clockwork Orange, the family dinner will not go off as planned. Two brothers and their spouses get together in an upscale restaurant. Serge, a politician destined for great things, and Paul, retired history professor who is very critical of his brother’s thirst for power. What brings them together: an unmentionable act committed by their two sixteen-year-old sons.

How far can one go to protect one’s children? That is the key question of Dutch author Herman Koch’s novel Le Dîner which Jean-Michel Frère chose to adapt. The play examines the characters beyond appearances, searches the conscience, calls forth the roots of the violence with an especially theatrical device: a closed world cut into 5 acts, with a progressive structure and a deconstructed narrative. No classic restaurant scene but an engagement of the audience to get it questioning itself, to discover, through concentric circles the magnitude of the drama. With a virtuosic language and with razor sharp dialogues Le Dîner is a mirror through which we recognize our daily irritations and our most cruel dilemmas.