The Lobster · written by Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthimis Filippou · 2015

A hotel performance stages examples of how a partner prevents choking and deters assault; the audience applauds.

Scene 34 of 123 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act two

Hotel Manager

Act oneAct two

Begins 24 min into a 1:28 film

The story so farBefore scene 34

After his wife leaves him, David has 45 days to find a partner at a hotel or become an animal; he escapes, falls for a shortsighted loner, and must decide whether to surrender his sight so they can stay together.

Scenes 1–15
David moves from his broken home into the hotel, where couplehood is imposed as the norm.
Scenes 16–24
He must find a partner before the 45-day limit turns him into an animal.
Scene 25
David loads a tranquilliser gun and joins the hotel’s hunt, entering its violent courtship system.
Just before
Scene 31
David shoots repeatedly at a loner but misses, runs out of darts, and stops on a rock.
Scene 32
The Maid awards extra hotel days to successful hunters; David has caught no one, and Room 302’s guest has not returned.
Scene 33
The Hotel Manager interrogates Lisping Man about masturbation and humiliates him; David keeps staring at his own hand.
Scene 34
This scene

34INT. LECTURE HALL - EVENING

The Maid and the 50-Year-Old Waiter stand in the middle of the stage. The hotel guests sit and watch. The Hotel Manager talks to the audience with a microphone. Besides her stands her partner, as usual.

HOTEL MANAGER

Good evening, everyone. With the

help of this reenactment, we’d like

to show you what it’s like when

someone lives on their own and what

it’s like when they live with

someone else.

One. Man eats alone.

The 50-Year-Old Waiter opens a folding table on stage and places a plate on it. He pretends to eat and then suddenly chokes, falls off his chair and pretends to die.

He then gets up and sits back down on his chair. This time the Maid sits opposite him.

HOTEL MANAGER (CONT’D)

Two. Man eats with woman.

The 50-Year-Old Waiter again pretends to eat and choke but this time the Maid gets up, performs the Heimlich manoeuver on him and he recovers. They then hug.

HOTEL MANAGER (CONT’D)

Three. Woman walks alone.

The Maid walks across the stage. A WAITER-EXTRA stands in the middle of the stage, blocks her path, pulls down his trousers and pretends to rape her.

HOTEL MANAGER (CONT’D)

Four. Woman walks with man.

The 50-Year-Old Waiter and the Maid walk together across the stage and pass in front of the rapist waiter. Nothing happens. The audience applauds.