When an American waitress enters into a devil's bargain with an overzealous customer, she begins to see the dark side of restaurant tipping culture.
The show troubles the "special" one-to-one relationship of the waitress to her customer, revealing what happens when this relationship breaks down under the mechanisms of money relations. In a world where every service has a price, how can we avoid being bought?
The Hostess invites an audience of three into the installation's inner circle, which consists of three booths - the confessional, the rotating peep show, and the fine dining booth. Three VIP audience members are hosted within these three intimate performance zones and encouraged to eavesdrop on fellow audience members' service interactions. Each booth carries its own rules for interaction, but as the story unfolds, the performer begins to lose her grip on the boundaries between public and private. Meanwhile, a larger audience is invited to look on from the edges of this VIP area.
A Brechtian musical for three and a spectacle for more, What The Money Meant encourages audience members to tip as they go while asking if the person with the dollar really has the power in the first place.
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