Bonus episode - The parallel between theatres and restaurants with Cate Blanchett

In this bonus episode, Cate Blanchett and Ruthie reflect on the similarities between a theatre performance and a restaurant kitchen.

Ruthie's Table 4, made in partnership with Moncler.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You were listening to Ruthie's Table four. In partnership with Montclair.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
I always like to have the tannoid the show replay
on in the dressing room so you can you can
feel the mumble mumble of the of the audience as
they come in. And it's great to be backstage before
the house lights go down, whether you have the first
entrance or not, because you can feel the texture of
the of the of the show and what mood they're in.

(00:27):
And I think that's the thing about working with a
great ensemble is you want the audience will influence the show,
but you've got to say, come with us. And so
sometimes if they're laughing too much, or you think, oh
they didn't quite understand that, or they didn't find that
as funny as last night, then it alters the way
the playing. It's a bit like being you know, on
open Sea. So yeah, I think it's you can definitely tell.

(00:49):
And then a Wednesday matinee is really different to a
Friday night or a Saturday night.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
And also we as the audience can see, also have
a sense of the ensemble. You see how they are relating,
and people will say, I mean, you know, very often
I always sit at the table closest to the kitchen,
and I can see. They say, look at how they're
all talking, and I said, yeah, they should be talking
less and looking more. But they're all they're telling each
other their news, or they're talking, or they're moving, and

(01:14):
you can that also. That's why I love an open kitchen,
you know, because it is a performance that people always
say that. You know, there's a lot of drama in
the restaurant. There's a drama between the chefs and the chefs,
the chefs and the waiters, the waiters and their customers
and their customers and their customers, you know. But there's
an immediacy too. My husband was an architect and he

(01:35):
didn't get to see his work done for three or
four years, but then it lasted for hundreds of years.
Will whereas ours is very immediate. You know. What we
do here as certainly is I can make something things
really good, and then it gets eaten and it's gone.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
It's such a wonderful marriage because so much about eating
is about the atmosphere in which you eat or you create,
and so the space is space is important.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
Yeah, yeah, we were talking about that yesterday. But in
terms of if you were thinking about restaurants that you
didn't go for the food just but where's a room
that you walk and you go, wow, I'm in this
beautiful room tonight to have a fabulous meal. We're trying
to think which restaurants. I think the walls they kind
of made you feel when you walked in there was

(02:22):
a drama and the height in the moo. Yeah. Yeah,
there's a restaurant in Paris called the Trambler. There is
in the garden Lyon, and then they're just a small
little places like a little Lebanese down the road. But
you know the room is you know, it's part of.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
The those little hole in the wall places, mum and
pop places you find in Rome, which will have one table,
eight chairs and you just get what they're cooking. And
I love that. I really love that, because sometimes you
can you can be overwhelmed by choice, you know the

(02:59):
fact that we can choose anything, have everything, and so
you become in a way, you lose your appetite.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
I think thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table four
in partnership with Montclair