Everyone Eats in the Dining Room

THEATER

The Dining Room

by A. R. Gurney

directed by Randi Wolkenbreit

at the Loeb Experimental Theater

October 8, 9 and 10

The dining room, the centerpiece of bourgeois Northeastern family life. What happens there? What kind of strange hypnotic force does it have over those that dare to cross its threshold? Why has this American tradition survived so long?

The Dining Room--the title makes the setting self-evident. The plot is simple: A group of six actors play a cornicopea of faces and situations interspersed by precisely timed entrances and exits until they all finally make it to the table at the same time, light the candles and watch the lights dim as the play ends.

The plot summary reads as it plays: random and unconnected. The play really has no plot, but is composed of a long series of unconnected scenes, none resembling each other in either subject or characters, and all connected only by the massive dining table which stands forebodingly at center stage. The scenes are all independent of one another, but each uses the table as a medium between the characters of a particular scene.

The concept of the play would appear to be both simple and unique, and it probably would be for any other playwright--but not for A. R. Gurney. To get some perspective on this play, look at two other Gurney plays that have been produced recently in the region, namely, The Fourth Wall and The Cocktail Hour. Including The Dining Room, the three plays have strikingly similar concepts: a certain object or tradition is chosen as the title and focal point of the play, and then the characters reveal their plot all in the context of the object.

Granted, the characters and conversation subjects do not have much in common. Sure, one could consider the structuring of the plays around an object an interesting concept, and, looking at Gurney's repertoire, one could consider this method an element of his style. But there is sometimes a fine line between creative expression and gimmick, and Gurney may have crossed that line at some point during this play.

Further, The Dining Room seems to lack what his past plays gained by having a constant set of characters and a directed plot--a sense of overall consistency that leaves the audience with a feeling of enjoyment during the play, but allows them to leave unaffected and detached from what happened on the stage.

Apart from some questions of structure, the play does have many aspects worthy of praise. The variety of scenes and characters is a novel concept, and was deftly handled by the playwright. One might fear that the numerous scenes and characters would be utter chaos on the stage with a cast of six, but Gurney's handling of the scenes lives up to the playwright's fame.

Each different scene quickly develops its own characters and a clear theme. With a fluency that puts many full-length plays to shame, the scenes are closely slotted together in a way that leaves no room for confusion.

The actors enhance the carefully constructed dialogue and distinguish each scene through their movements and precise delivery. As a group, the actors have a common rhythm that works well with the text while keeping the audience enthralled to the final lines.

The sheer number and scope of these scenes could only be the result of a lifetime of fastidiousness, coupled with an intricate memory and a vivid imagination.

Through the maze of The Dining Room's skits we hear Gurney's futile, nostalgic plea for the return to the America that he knew in his youth--an American tradition of which the "dining room" is a part. Depending on the age of the spectator, one may find himself either weeping with the author over his lost childhood or tiring of Gurney's whimperings and yearning for the future, not a unretrievable past.