Food, Wine and Relationships

Dinner With Friends

Writer Donald Margulies, a Yale Professor of English and Theatre Performance, has a great many plays to his credit. They include such dramas as THE LOMAN FAMILY PICNIC, SIGHT UNSEEN, COLLECTED STORIES and BROOKLYN BOY. Several of these plays have garnered a variety of accolades and awards, such as Margulies’ 1998 DINNER WITH FRIENDS, the current production by Bluebird Arts. This Pulitzer Prize-winner for Drama in 2000 opens the company’s sixth season of presenting intimate stories about real people and their relationships. In this production, the talented Chicago-based theatre company truly lives up to their artistic goal.

Gabe and Karen’s lives revolve around food and wine. It’s what originally brought the Connecticut couple together, and those delicious dinners, accompanied by a full-bodied vino, play a huge part in almost every aspect of their lives. Twelve years earlier the married couple introduced their mutual friends, Beth and Tom, to each other at their Cape Cod cottage. The two flirted and quickly developed a fondness for each other. Eventually they also married and had two children. Gabe and Karen prided themselves on extending their own “chosen family.” 

But, when the play opens in the present, Beth appears to be enjoying a sumptuous dinner prepared by her friends. However, she’s alone tonight and something’s on her mind. As the perky couple serve up delectable food and wine, Gabe and Karen obliviously monopolize the evening with their chatty bon mots, detailing a recent culinary trip through Italy. All seems normal until Beth suddenly falls apart emotionally during the dessert course. That’s when we learn that Tom’s been having a romantic affair with a travel agent named Nancy and that he’s asked Beth for a divorce. 

Gabe and Karen are absolutely shocked and, throughout the rest of the play, take their friends’ breakup personally. After the flashback to when Beth and Tom first met, Margulies creates two insightful scenes, during which we discover how the friendships between both Karen and Beth and Gabe and Tom have deteriorated with time and change. Then, in a final scene, as we watch Gabe and Karen getting ready for bed, we see how time and the changes in their friends’ lives, have also affected their own relationship.

The quartet of actors in this production are equally excellent. Throughout the play, each of the characters has his or her own moment to shine. As Karen, Dana Muelchi, who was seen in Bluebird’s terrific production of PROOF, shines once again. She’s a wonderful actress with the talent to appear glib and gay, while beneath the surface she’s simmering with suppressed emotion. Also seen in PROOF, Sarah Seidler, who mostly portrays Beth as an artistic, free spirit, reveals her character’s complicated emotional journey while dealing with and accepting change. She nicely reins in Beth during the scene where she and Karen share drinks, appetizers and some bitter truths. In that moment we find a woman who’s rediscovered her own dignity, as well as a life that can still offer delight and a joie de vivre.

The two male actors in this production are making their auspicious debut with Bluebird Arts. As Gabe, Emil Thomas captures a character who values his friendships and has married a woman with whom he shares his love for food and wine. Gabe seems happy-go-lucky but is also thoughtful and introspective. Mr. Thomas has a demeanor and delivery that reminded me of SNL’s hilarious Kenan Thompson. Alex Oberheide is simply marvelous as Tom. The handsome actor is strong and eloquent, especially when he returns to Karen and Gabe’s, late at night. As Tom, Mr. Oberheide is sometimes sexy and flirtatious, but most often acerbic and pointedly blunt. Here’s hoping Chicago will be enjoying many more future performances by this gifted actor.  

Directed with skill and integrity by Artistic Director Luda Lopatina Solomon, this Award-winning, 25-year-old play still holds up and plenty to say. She has smoothly orchestrated a story that examines how friendships can change with the passing of years and how loyalties shift as inevitably as the sands of time. Human beings, who are always reluctant to accept change, rail when a shift occurs within our treasured relationships. 

Donald Margulies has shrewdly captured the fragile essence of these emotional shifts in this two-hour drama. And Ms. Solomon is wise. She’s allowed the laughter to evolve naturally but never forces the humor. After all, this isn’t a TV sitcom but a serious play in which the comedy is derived from the characters’ realistic, but sometimes bizarre behavior. And Ms. Solomon’s staging demonstrates how simply a scene change can take place within Samantha Rausch’s gorgeous Set Design, with just some subtle furniture rearrangement. Brilliant! And kudos to Laura Sturm for her tasteful intimacy coordination. Not an earthshaking play, but a sensitive production with much to say. Bluebird’s sixth season is off to an excellent start.         

Recommended

Reviewed by Colin Douglas

Presented October 19-November 23 by Bluebird Arts at Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont Ave., Chicago.

Tickets are available in person at the box office, by calling 773-975-8150 or by going to www.bluebirdarts.org.

Additional information about this and other area productions can be found by visiting www.theatreinchicago.com.