CHAPTER 30 — The Dinner and the Drama

In “The Din­ner and the Dra­ma,” the chap­ter dis­cuss­es a cul­tur­al shift in Amer­i­ca that is dimin­ish­ing the qual­i­ty and appre­ci­a­tion of the­atre, com­par­ing it unfa­vor­ably with the past. Claude Frol­lo, in Hugo’s nar­ra­tive, sym­bol­izes a prophet­ic vision where one soci­etal change eclipses anoth­er; here, the elab­o­ra­tion and tim­ing of din­ners are seen as encroach­ing upon the tra­di­tion­al appeal and cul­tur­al posi­tion of dra­ma. High­light­ing New York’s para­dox of numer­ous and rich­ly fund­ed the­aters yet a declin­ing stage for clas­sic and qual­i­ty per­for­mances, the text laments the absence of sig­nif­i­cant con­tem­po­rary con­tri­bu­tions to dra­ma from Amer­i­can authors.

The chap­ter delves into sev­er­al rea­sons for this decline, attribut­ing a sig­nif­i­cant part to changes in social habits, par­tic­u­lar­ly the “star” sys­tem, dif­fi­cul­ties main­tain­ing stock com­pa­nies, and a short­age of Amer­i­can act­ing tal­ent. How­ev­er, a crit­i­cal yet over­looked fac­tor is iden­ti­fied as the chang­ing din­ner habits—moving from ear­ly, sim­ple fam­i­ly meals to late, elab­o­rate social events—thus com­pet­ing with the­ater atten­dance. This shift has not only altered the prac­ti­cal­i­ty of attend­ing per­for­mances but also trans­formed the meal into a sub­stan­tial, lux­u­ri­ous social func­tion that rivals the appeal of the the­atre.

The chang­ing land­scape of New York’s din­ing scene from the 1870s, includ­ing the rise of din­ing estab­lish­ments that cater to leisure and lux­u­ry, has con­tributed to this phe­nom­e­non. The vari­ety and appeal of such din­ing expe­ri­ences offer a com­pelling alter­na­tive to the­atre-going. Con­se­quent­ly, this has led to a mis­match between audi­ence expec­ta­tions and the offer­ings of the the­atre, with pref­er­ence increas­ing­ly giv­en to light enter­tain­ment over intel­lec­tu­al­ly or artis­ti­cal­ly stim­u­lat­ing per­for­mances.

Com­par­i­son with Euro­pean din­ing and the­atre-going habits under­scores a dis­tinct cul­tur­al dif­fer­ence, sug­gest­ing that the Amer­i­can shift towards late, lux­u­ri­ous din­ing is not uni­ver­sal­ly par­al­leled and that in oth­er cul­tures, the­atre still holds a cen­tral place in social life. The chap­ter con­cludes on a hope­ful note, sug­gest­ing that the cur­rent low in Amer­i­can dra­ma may even­tu­al­ly give way to a resur­gence of inter­est and qual­i­ty in the the­atre, dri­ven by a desire for intel­lec­tu­al­ly and emo­tion­al­ly ful­fill­ing expe­ri­ences that go beyond mere amuse­ment.

The chap­ter crit­i­cal­ly explores the com­plex inter­re­la­tion between soci­etal trends and cul­tur­al con­sump­tion, argu­ing that the evo­lu­tion of din­ing prac­tices has inad­ver­tent­ly con­tributed to a deval­u­a­tion of dra­ma in Amer­i­ca. It calls for a reflec­tion on the social pri­or­i­ties that guide enter­tain­ment choic­es and their long-term impli­ca­tions for cul­tur­al enrich­ment.