THE STORY: A man shares a bowl of berries, and a young woman falls in love. A world away, a mother prepares a bowl of soup to keep her son from leaving home. And a son cooks a meal for his dying father to say everything that words can’t. In this poignant and lyrical play, the making of a perfect meal is an expression more precise than language, and the medium through which life gradually reveals itself.
“…sensitive…deeply sympathetic…AUBERGINE [has] a perceptive sense of the invisible barriers that mysteriously spring up between people, and the equally mysterious impulses that bind them together. It has a cleareyed focus on the sometimes ugly details of impending mortality…” —The New York Times.
“The language is lovely, the dramatic structure is impressive…[A] sense of melancholy is beautifully evoked in a sequence of scenes in which parents and children bond—or clash—over meals, a dramatic confirmation that food is, indeed, the fundamental symbol of familial love.” —Variety.
“Cho is a precise writer and a lyrical one…[the] scenes are skillful and affecting, cruel and kind…elegantly written…quietly profound…What had seemed a play about food and appetite is ultimately a play about death and loss and the compensations that help us to bear it—love, care, a brick of instant ramen.” —The Guardian (US).
“…AUBERGINE delivers a moving meditation on love, loss, and the emotional power of food…[The play] sensitively explores its emotionally fraught situations while infusing them with cathartic humor…AUBERGINE…has a deeply felt emotionality…Anyone who’s ever shared a quiet late-night meal with a loved one, especially one who’s no longer here, will find much to relate to.” —The Hollywood Reporter.
