Playwright A.R. Gurney, who died at age 86 in 2017, penned one of my favorite all-star plays, “Love Letters,” which he wrote and released in 1988, earning him a Pulitzer Prize nomination.
“Love Letters” is the reason I became a fan of Gurney, as well as co-starring in several resurrected regional runs of “Love Letters” over the past decade and heralding the play’s 2014 Broadway revival by taking a trek to New York City to see Carol Burnett opposite the late, great Brian Dennehy headline the two-person stage story.
But backtrack a little more than two decades earlier than 2014, at the time Gurney’s first published play, “The Dining Room,” was inviting audiences to the Astor Place Theatre in February 1982 for the original run starring William H. Macy and John Shea among the cast of six tasked with playing more than 50 different characters.
In fall 1989, I was beginning my freshman year studying journalism at Valparaiso University and dividing my campus time as a staff writer for the weekly Torch Newspaper. A September 1989 run of Gurney’s “The Dining Room” was being produced by the VU Theater Department, and my assigning editor asked me to attend a performance to review it. A handful of other student writer bylines, mostly from the upper grade levels, were usually assigned to film, theater and concert reviews, along with opinion column writing. Previously, I’d published one other theater review assignment in April 1989 for the campus spring musical, “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.”
This week, looking back on my review of “The Dining Room” from 37 years ago, the headline sums up what my sentiment was for that time and that production: “‘Dining Room’ offers VU unappetizing confusion.”
My review skewers the ability of the cast of six to transition into so many varied roles and dual identities. I also note how sparse the dining room set appeared on stage, sans many props and fixtures referenced in dialogue. As you might imagine, the cast and the director of that play were not happy with my review. (In contrast, my previously published review of the spring “Charlie Brown” musical was mostly glowing prose and praise.)
I recall the cast and director calling me in to question what experience or “background” I had as a writer to also write a theatrical review. But after all, this was college, and I was a 19-year-old student at the time. My slim credentials included acting in my high school plays, and I’d also taken a three-credit VU course in the history of theater. Like those talents on stage, I too was still learning my craft.
I’ve never seen any more productions of “The Dining Room.”
A new two-weekend run of “The Dining Room” is opening this weekend, produced by Marian Theatre Guild and directed by Morgan McCabe, Saturday, April 18 through Sunday, April 26 at Marian Memorial Auditorium, 119th St. and Lincoln Avenue in Whiting. Saturday night performances include a dinner option, by adding payment of $38. The show-only price is $18 for seniors over age 55 or students 18 and younger, or $20 adult admission. You can reach the Box Office to order your tickets or reserve your dinner by calling 219-473-0713. Due to adult language and situations, tickets are limited to patrons 13 and up.
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I’m curious if, after nearly four decades, my own appetite for “The Dining Room” has changed.
Here is how Gurney describes his play synopsis in his provided script notes: “The play is set in the dining room of a typical well-to-do household, the place where the family assembled daily for breakfast and dinner and for any and all special occasions. The action is a mosaic of interrelated scenes—some funny, some touching, some rueful—which, taken together, create an in-depth portrait of a vanishing species: the upper-middle-class WASP. The actors change roles, personalities and ages with virtuoso skill as they portray a wide variety of characters, from little boys to stern grandfathers, and from giggling teenage girls to Irish housemaids. Each vignette introduces a new set of people and events; a father lectures his son on grammar and politics; a boy returns from boarding school to discover his mother’s infidelity; a senile grandmother doesn’t recognize her own sons at Thanksgiving dinner; a daughter, her marriage in shambles, pleads futilely to return home, etc. Dovetailing swiftly and smoothly, the varied scenes coalesce, ultimately, into a theatrical experience of exceptional range, compassionate humor and abundant humanity.”
There’s plenty of seating available for “The Dining Room,” and so here’s hoping for brisk ticket sales, which will include me for a second chance nearly four decades later to revisit this familiar yet unfamiliar family space.
Philip Potempa is a journalist, published author and radio show host on WJOB 1230 AM. He can be reached at [email protected].