Director Jay Mower's minimalist set features one elegant dinning table with eight chairs and a lighted landscape painting as the only decoration -- all in a black box. It's a perfect setting to platform A. R. Gurney's The Dining Room. Nothing distracts the audience from the talents of the six players performing 57 different characters.
The cast, under the astute direction of Jay Mower, includes Sam Warner, Jim Clevenger, Gary Hunter, Cheryl Warner, Cari Lowery, and Lee Donnelly. Theirs is the best ensemble performance of the season, as they assay .characters from very young children to doddering, very old folks. During the course of the play, a period of many years, The Dining Room is the center of many folk's activities. The play is non-linear, the stories are vignettes from unrelated people's lives, with the sole connectivity being "The Dining Room." The kids' birthday party is hilarious as Cheryl tries to control four kids sloppily eating ice cream and cake, while carrying on an intimate conversation with Jim, the father of one of the kids, a family friend, and her lover.
Sam Warner shines as the stern patriarch of a family, trying to develop his standards in his teenagers. Then there's the moment when he is Cheryl's lover and her son, Jim, enters. Sparks fly throughout this scene. Gary, like the others, moves from one role to another with ease. He is the brow-beaten son of Sam and then a carefree child. Jim, as a psychiatrist, has a very professional demeanor. Then, as Cheryl's friend, trying to estimate the repairs to the dining table, he realizes only at the last moment she has been putting strong moves on him. Such innocence.
Young Cari also has a wide age range to cover her many roles. Her Aunt Harriet delights. As a pot-smoking, gin-and vodka-drinking teen she amusingly induces fellow teen, Lee, to drink a strange alcoholic concoction. She and Lee both play maids, each with a different accent. Lee easily became a child. She's also brilliant as a 90-something matriarch suffering from aging and a loss of memory (the most poignant role).
The comedian of the cast is Cheryl. She can intimidate anybody with a mere side glance. Her wanton housewife against Jim's innocence is riotously funny.
Well, you get the idea. A special credit to director Mower for the perfect pacing as he moves from one short scene to the next in overlaps, mere looks, silent pauses, and many other transitions that coast the production along. All of the hundreds of props are imaginary, but I swear we can see them. I would have liked to see a variety of lighting, which would even further define a scene. Arlene Darden's costumes add greatly to the believability of the various characters. I'm going back to see The Dining Room again.
