Saturday I traveled to Vista for two shows: a matinee at the Avo and an evening performance at the Broadway, to which I am new. The theaters' stage entrances are within a few feet of each other on the alley between Main and Broadway. The Broadway Theater, owned and operated by Randall Hickman and Douglas Davis, is charming. The entry is off a small, quiet courtyard. The lobby, as is the auditorium, is filled with Broadway memorabilia. The square auditorium offers flexibility in staging. A. R. Gurney's The Dining Room, their current offering, is staged in one corner of the area with comfortable tiered seating on three sides. It is an inviting, intimate setting.
In fact, inviting is exactly what happens when you arrive. An actress, Deja Bleu Ginsberg, greets us and takes us to our seats. Director/actor Hickman and actor Davis also act as greeters and ushers. This is a personable lead-in to The Dining Room, where we are invited into the lives of over 40 people in 16 different scenes covering many years. The very use of the dining room changes with cultural changes from an elite, well-staffed place of social significance to a teenagers hangout for illicit drinks and smokes.
Gurney's 1982 play reflects these changes as the dining room may eventually change into a dust-catching room, while we dine on TV trays watching the news on the boob tube or in the kitchen watching the food preparation.
Director Randall Hickman has brought together a talented cast. The seamless flow from scene to scene moves the production nicely. This is truly an ensemble production as the actors shift from character to character, never overlapping the individual characters.
The production opens with Deja Bleu Ginsberg, as a real estate agent, showing the house to a client, portrayed by Douglas Davis. In another scene, John Aviles, as an architect, is hired to design changes to the house.
Lucy Ann Albert delightfully spans the ages, at one point as a young girl and, later, a very old woman touched with senility. In another scene, Michael Thomas Tower, as a well-to-do father, informs his daughter (Ginsberg), who has left her husband, lives with another man and is in a lesbian affair, that she is not welcome to bring her three children into his home until she gets her act together.
Director Hickman even graces the stage in two scenes. In one he plays Gordon who is in a tryst with Kate (Katherine Forbes) when her son, Chris (Aviles), unexpectedly comes home.
Gurney mixes social commentary with a delightful dash of humor. This wonderful ensemble cast make it all happen convincingly. Act One closes with a touching scene as the family, the whole cast, except Hickman, sits for a turkey feast when the Old Woman (Albert), memory shot, insists it is time to go home and, of course, it is her home where the feast is being held. Act Two features Forbes with the aid of her maid (Albert), setting a fantastic table replete with two candelabras.
This was my first foray into Vista and the Broadway Theatre and it certainly won't be my last.
