Divorces affect many more people than the couple untying the knot. Dinner With Friends, playwright Donald Margulies' testament to breakups, is an extremely strong look at dissolution. Director Jay Mower, who also designed the set, brings to the stage, Cheryl and Sam Warner as Karen and Gabe -- the "perfect" couple, and Rob Tyler and Susan Lawson as the "imperfect" couple.
Mower put these four people in a black box with eight little boxes and a couple of slabs of plywood, also in black. These meager pieces became a dining room, two bedrooms, a great room, and a New York bar. The credits state that props were provided by cast and crew with the believable set dressing by one of the producers. The Warners portray a happily(?) married duo, also in their early 40s, with a pair of really great kids. Being a perfect couple, they are elegant cooks, well traveled, and totally compatible and attuned to each other's needs and wants. They aren't the divorcing kind.
Susan Lawson and Rob Tyler as Beth and Tom, however, do not have the perfect marriage. In fact they're on the skids and sliding fast towards divorcedom. Tom has found a travel agent who just loves him to death. Beth is stuck with the kids. Sorry, can't tell you any more.
Dinner With Friends explores the emotional depths of losing loves and losing friends. Every divorce is much more than the separation of two people. Friends take sides, the couple takes sides, and the result is an extended divorce of friendships.
Peter McGuinness' lighting is moody and dark. David Farlow and Jay Mower's sound design never interfere with the production. The cast here is superb, the direction flawless. We're totally convinced that one union is ideal, the other, Titanic. The cast reveal their characters' very souls; as an audience we could not ask for anything more.
