Review: TABLE 17 at Geffen Playhouse

It’s the age-old story…

Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy goes into AA. Boy and reunite at a meet-up that is not exactly a “date.” Lovelorn restaurant attendant offers commentary. People dance on dance floors and on the tops of bars. Opening night audiences lose their minds and sound off loudly at assorted actions taken by Boy, Girl, Waiter and Flight Attendant. Said loss of mind and answer-back is encouraged. Much laughter ensues. Love triumphs.

And who would like a seat at TABLE 17? 

Not only can an audience sit in the audience of The Geffen Playhouse’s Gil Cates Theatre to watch Douglas Lyons’ romantic dramady unfold, but assorted guests can also take their place at tables on or adjacent to the stage, thereby putting themselves in the midst of the action. So they’re in the restaurant where our lovebirds are trying to work it out two years after their breakup. Or in their bedrooms.

Whatever the scene, whatever your vantage point, most of the five characters played by actors Gail Bean, Biko Eisen-Martin and Michael Rishawn will be soliciting your feedback, presumably the more boisterous, the better. While some might find back-talking audience members narratively distracting, it’s the hook of TABLE 17, and the actors welcome it. The fervor of a given audience – kind of its own character in this play - probably helps distract from the fact that, its sweet vibes aside, there’s not a lot of there in Lyons’ play. It’s a good time, but it’s light as a spritz of air freshener.

Our Boy and Girl are Jada (Bean) and Dallas (Eisen-Martin). She’s a flight attendant, smart, very much looking for love and into looking her absolute best – for dates, reunions, always. In a landscape of very aggressive, cocky men, aspiring music producer Dallas is too nice to be a player, and he can actually look good wearing corduroy. These two meet on a dance floor, fall hard for each other immediately and – four years in – find a way to screw things up.

Back at Table 17 of their favorite restaurant, where a live wire of a host named River (Rishawn) is taking care of them with equal parts sentiment and snark, Jada and Dallas try to figure out where things stand and whether there’s a path forward. Periodically the action jumps back in time to when things go wrong or right. Along the way, Jada, Dallas and occasionally River address the audience for a temperature check on some outlook or decision. And of course when you embolden people some of whom probably wouldn’t mind being on the stage themselves, you’ll hear from them. A lot. They might even find ways to upstage you.

The Geffen’s production is a remount of the 2024 MCC production with director Zhailon Levingston and the bulk of his technical team reuniting with actors Eisen-Martin and Rishawn from the original company. Newcomer Bean (replacing Kara Young) is by turns tough, sexy, and a winning bundle of neuroses (to which Jada would and does admit). Jada being a lady who takes her appearance very seriously, Costume Designer Devario D. Simmons and hair and wig designer Nikiya Mathis help make her look fabulous. No “I must have a man” fuzz brain, Bean’s Jada is a match for nice guys, players and everything in between. The charge generated between Bean and Eisen-Martin and between Bean and Rishawn’s more predatory characters, is palpable and fun to watch.

Individually or as part of a couple, Dallas is another character to root for, and Eisin-Martin embodies this flawed teddy bear of a Mister Right with plenty of charm. Indeed, he makes the guy so likeable that his missteps drew the greater vocal ire of my audience. No so very surprising, this. Rom-coms (and rom-drams?) tilt in favor of happy endings for the ladies.

Playing three wildly different characters, Rishawn isn’t simply the production’s wild card, he’s also its ace. The bitchy waiter and the horny bartender have become tropes, but Rishawn makes sure that River takes us deeper than the superficial wittiness of his one-liners . Which, to Lyons' credit, are pretty damned funny ((“I can’t pull any strings. I’m not Geppetto”). Somewhere on the male spectrum between River, Dallas and the bartender sits Eric, another flight attendant who plays a role in the Jada-Dallas love story. In a tale that doesn’t have a clear cut antagonist, Rishawn makes Eric edgier and more interesting than our heroes.  

Scenic designer Jason Sherwood’s restaurant is appropriately tasteful with ample bar space giving folks space to primp, dance or exult. Love can make you do all of that.  

TABLE 17 plays through December 7 at 10886 Le Conte Avenue, Los Angeles.

Photo of Biko Eisen-Martin, Michael Rishawn and Gail Bean by Jeff Lorch. 

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