Thoughts on Dinner With Friends, and an actual dinner with friends!

I don't think it's any secret that I'm a huge fan of Donald Margulies and his plays.  I've been reading and watching them for years and it was so exciting to know that there would be two of his plays performed this season.  I talked about how thrilling and moving I found The Model Apartment, and boy do I wish it could've had a longer life so I could've seen it again.  Last Friday, I went to the first preview of the revival of Dinner With Friends, at the Roundabout's Laura Pels Theatre.

I saw Dinner With Friends in its first incarnation, and to be honest, I don't remember a lot of it because our seats were terrible - we were in the second row, far left, by the wall, and I just felt so removed from everything that was going on.  But I read the play afterwards and found it an interesting take on marriage and relationships.  When I first saw the play, I was in my early 30s and still maybe thought marriage was in the cards for me - that made the characters a little more unknowable.  But Donald always writes such character-specific dialogue with relatable plots that deal with more than the obvious.  I really found that to be the case seeing the show the other night.

As a woman approaching my 50s, with marriage probably in my rearview mirror, now I see Dinner With Friends as a piece about the roles people play throughout their lives, both the roles they assign themselves and the roles assigned to them.  And I found the ups and downs of these relationships quite poignant when realizations were made and lost about the characters' public and private selves.

The first scene is a married couple describing their trip to Italy in great detail to another friend - of course, this made me giggle, because I certainly became a little overzealous describing my trip to people over the years!  But suddenly the friend starts crying and explains that her husband has left her.  Immediately the wife jumps to her friend's defense, while her husband tries to see both sides.  You can see that the married couple, Gabe and Karen, are just as shaken by this news as the friend, Beth, is in sharing it.

The play is seven scenes, most of which are between two of the four characters, though we do have one scene with all four characters as a flashback, which really informs, yet also blurs, what comes later.  As each character tries to navigate their lives post-revelation, it's interesting how Donald sets them all up for success and failure, and maybe the people who are the blindest are the ones who seem most together.

I have certainly found myself, on occaasion, chafing against expectations of who I'm supposed to be and how I'm supposed to behave, so I completed related to all of the characters' highs and lows.  I found myself really feeling vulnerable at the end of the evening - on the subway platform, going home, I felt like everyone was watching me because my walls were down.  I love when theater affects me that completely.

First preview-wise, there seemed to be some weird sounds happening, either in the design, or in the house.  I kept thinking I was hearing music backstage, then beeping.  But I don't know if the noises were coming from backstage or not.  Some of the scene changes were quite noisy, though, but I'm sure that will all be fixed during the preview process.  I think the relationships will tighten up as well and feel more lived in.  It did seem at times that the actors were just trying to remember all their lines as opposed to embodying a character.  Again, I'm sure that will all be taken care of by the opening.  The show is smartly directed and flows nicely from scene to scene.  I look forward to another visit later in the run.

Seat neighbor-wise, I think the couple next to me got a little too into the troubled marriage spirit.  They started arguing as soon as the lights came up for intermission.  The husband was quite disrespectful in tone - I heard snippets of his comments, including "fine, you walk home if you can't answer me" and "that's so typical of you."  He just seemed really unpleasant.  Maybe they shouldn't see a show with arguing married couples again.  Oh, and the house was FREEZING.  I had to wear a scarf throughout.  I hope they fix that.

Last night, I went to a birthday party of a dear friend and my fellow Queens adventurer - what a good time!  Cowgirl is always fun, they make a great margarita, and it was a nice varied group of people.  I chatted with some old friends, made some new ones, wore a silly moustache, ate a delicious quesadilla and got a little tipsy.  Fun fun fun.  It was just nice to sit, laugh, drink and not have to play a role.  Being myself is the best fun of all.  :)