Few worlds are as ripe for the mockery as the New York food world. From the ridiculously image-obsessed chefs to the extreme overabundance of local/sustainable restaurants to the gossipy websites that track their every trivial move, there's plenty to trash. But it takes someone who truly knows the scene to be able to properly rip it apart, which is where the Upright Citizen's Brigade's Pig: A Restaurant steps in.
Written by the Leila Cohan-Miccio, a former editor for Grub Street, directed by Caitlin Tegart, and single-handedly performed by Lauren Conlin Adams, who's waited tables everywhere from Balthazar to DB Bistro Moderne, Pig is a razor-sharp take on the city's current foodie fadishness. The incredibly elastic Adams plays half a dozen characters, including, but not limited to: a pork-obsessed control freak chef, a hyper-bitchy restaurant publicist, a lascivious hat-wearing critic, and a DIY Brooklyn "farmer" who grows grapes on his Crown Heights rooftop, "with the terroir of Jamaican beef patties and weed."
The show is barely half an hour, but manages to skewer nearly every aspect of the business, with a sort of wink-wink nod to the audience, who will only get it if they're as obsessed as the people Pig mocks. We spoke to Cohan-Miccio about the, ahem, process behind coming up with the show: "Pig: A Restaurant came out of Lauren and I wanting to do a show that combined our food backgrounds with comedy," she explained. "We had a lot of 'meetings' (read: drinking wine) where we brainstormed character ideas: some came from personal experience (as a blogger, I dealt with a lot of publicists like Sara) and some were just ideas we found funny ([Ditzy hostess] Aurora's entire character is based on a resume Lauren saw that read 'Model/Actress/Hostess')."
The duo spent nearly six months working on the show, which is being performed again on November 3 and 17 at 8 p.m. If you're looking for some topical entertainment while waiting for that table at the Dutch to open up, buy your $5 tickets right this way.
