Review: DINNER WITH FRIENDS at Dirt Dogs Theatre Company

Donald Marguilies’ Dinner With Friends is an intriguing choice for Dirt Dogs Theatre Company to open their new season with. Here we have a troop known for putting on edgy shows, such as Sam Shepard, Tracy Letts, The Pillow Man, Venus in Fur, and suddenly they have opted for a cozy, dramatic comedy about uncoupling, entirely set at dining tables or in beds. It’s a nice shift that lets us know they can pull off something suburban yet with depth. Marguiles won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Drama with this script, which skillfully examines how divorce extends beyond the couple and affects the social circle around them. Like death, it makes people examine who they are, where they are, and most importantly, why they are. The brilliance of this work is that it offers us everyday people whom we will instantly recognize and relate to. There are no heroes, no villains, just humans. It’s a quiet show, one where people just talk to each other. But if you listen and watch the body language, you can hear the questions manifesting around them. If you like watching people being complicated while saying simple things, this one is for you.  

The show centers on four friends, comprising two married couples. Karen and Gabe are the perfect pair who throw exquisite gourmet dinner parties, work together professionally, and constantly talk about how amazing their life is. But when close friends Beth and Tom announce they are splitting up after more than a decade, it rocks the perfect little bubble. Suddenly, the ugly truths spike up. Can we be friends with both parties? Have they thought about therapy? What does it mean for everyone’s marriage? Are Karen and Gabe truly happy, or are they just going through the charade Beth and Tom have abandoned? And who should we blame? Are we blameless?  

To pull off Dinner With Friends, you need a strong and extremely likable ensemble. The acting has to be layered like a delicate cake. Director Curtis Barber has found them. Elizabeth Black and Brad Goertz are the perfect ones, and Katherine Rinaldi and Norman Dillon are the others falling apart. Black and Goertz are easy to believe as the self-aware couple that knows they are fabulous. Both actors have excellent chemistry and know how to play smug yet charming simultaneously. You love them instantly, but you also feel their superiority. Rinaldi and Dillon get the tougher assignment, but fare well with being the imperfect ones. They constantly make an emotional mess and still seem endearing. Katherine, in particular, remains lovable no matter what happens to her, and we feel for her character until a pivotal moment shows her darker truth, which she plays to perfection. Norman (as Tom) is hard to like throughout, but you do admire his ability to hide things his wife can’t, and by the end, we realize he is not the total bad guy some may assume. I wondered if the actor or the director decided to make him seem almost annoyingly insincere until a defining moment at a bar. He sticks out until the rest of the characters sink to him. The cast is really tight here, and they do well with this material. They deliver everything honestly and hone in on the quiet, nonverbal moments, too. They let things hang in the air, creating a natural rhythm that they all honor. 

The direction from Curtis Barber is rock solid, even though this is unlike anything I have seen him attempt before. It’s interesting because the actors play in six or seven distinctly different areas, so kudos to his intimate blocking skills. He’s definitely honed in on the right tempo for this one, and collaborated with artisans who can make the space feel claustrophobic and expansive at once. Mark A. Lewis does the set and technical design, and boy, is it well executed. Liminal open spaces of patios, bedrooms, and living rooms, all running together. There is a working fridge, a couple of sinks, and many levels throughout the stage. Jim Elliott’s lights have to keep up with the spatial changes, and they do, and everything is realistic and natural. He focuses the spaces. Malinda L. Beckham adds nice flourishes with her costumes that add to the characters, and her work decorating the set to look like a sophisticated home. It’s a handsome play, and it looks great. Tech is always impressive at Dirt Dogs. 

Dinner With Friends is a show that you will likely talk about afterward if you take your spouse or a married friend. It’s a meditation on how married couples navigate the world and how they impact each other as their relationships shift for better or worse. Single people may walk away feeling they somehow got the best part of life. Who wants to feel alone with another person? It’s a piece that takes its time, talks a lot, and simply assures you that someone out there is feeling exactly what you feel. I chuckled when a friend one row before me turned to me and said, “This is literally dinner theater!” He was right, because you felt like you had been to at least three meals with these people by the end of the evening. But hopefully it will inspire folks to sit across from each other and talk about something a little more scary than how a cake uses polenta. 

Dinner With Friends runs at the MATCH through November 7th. There are plenty of places to eat before you come in, and just as many places to drink after you leave. The show runs roughly two hours and includes a fifteen-minute intermission.