“It is going to be challenging to talk about this play without giving away quite a few plot points that are revealed within the unfolding of the story,” read the email.

“We’ve worked hard to keep the secrecy of those revelations and would very much appreciate if you would help us maintain that surprise and delight/shock for our potential audiences. Which means, there is a performer  that you might not be able (if you are amenable to this request) to mention at all. And that would be our preference.”

Translation: After you arrive at The Vintage on Water Street, please review Saltfire Theatre’s production of Michael Hollinger’s “An Empty Plate in the Café du Grand Boeuf” without revealing plot details or character names. Best of luck in all your endeavors.

As much as no reviewer worth the price of a pound of chateaubriand would give away the very surprises that make Saltfire’s meal so special, a specific request to write the most non-specific review possible is about as rare as discovering Michelin-rated cuisine at McDonald’s. Then again, the Leader is no ordinary small-town rag. So, let’s stick to what is and is not on the menu of a Parisian Café so exclusive that it has no menu to begin with.

Hollinger’s play, which premiered in Philadelphia three decades ago, takes place in a café whose name, in one translation, derives from that of a castrated bull. That bull, in both virile and castrated form, plays a sizable, albeit metaphorical part in the 90-minute one-act play.

Prepare for absurdity after absurdity. One ridiculous, laugh out loud scenario after the other, fed by characters who are so consumed by their own dramas that they have no room for anyone else’s. Characters who, for the most part, have no filters—who confuse service with drama as they move within the confines of a restaurant in which they accompany every course with their own dirty laundry. Course after course in which each character listens past the other, refuses to see what is easily seen, and fails to differentiate between what is empty and what is full to the point of overflowing.

Then there is Hemingway. Lots and lots of Hemingway. Not just quotation after quotation, but mirror image after mirror image. Not in any mirror, but rather in a succession of funhouse mirrors that magnify and distort—that transform true proportions beyond recognition until reality loses all semblance of same.

Beneath the ceaseless madness lie sorry and sadness. Two sides of the same coin, whose true value is revealed with wit and brilliance. 

When Silver Spring Stage produced the show in Maryland in 2022, it warned that the play “includes mentions of sexual encounters, anatomy, death, suicide, and animal abuse.” Lions, tigers, and bears, oh my. Far more useful to say that each and every actor in Saltfire Theatre’s marvelous production—I won’t mention names, lest you discover which one is missing—is superb. Maude Eisele and Genevieve Barlow’s direction is ideal, and every facial expression is worth its weight in premium boeuf. Special kudos to Lilly Gulden for a costume fit for Jackie Kennedy or Audrey Hepburn, and to Jim Burke and Kirsten Louise Webb for the engaging soundtrack.

“The Empty Plate in the Café du Grand Boeuf” runs Friday-Sunday through November 24 at The Vintage by Port Townsend Vineyards. The space is intimate, with wine available. Showtime is 7:30; you must arrive by 7:20. Attending will help remind you that, despite the outcome of the Presidential election, life is very much worth living. For general admission tickets, see saltfiretheatre.org.