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Show y : " r ; rpv Er3 i. ? Pi.. lj li r;1 LOCAL THEATRE 4 A i n ) v Mi wh ,y 111 2000 Pulitxer Prize winner, explores the dissolution of one relationship and the continuation of another. v. p- yr- - - onald Margulies' play "Dinner with Friends" so accurately portrays the disintegration of a mar riage that as I sat in the dark auditorium of Pioneer Memorial Theatre, I began having flash backs to my parents' messy divorce. Early in Act I, the separating couple of Beth (Deidre Madigan) and Tom (Matt Loney) have a bedroom scene that escalates from playful bantering to a vicious, accusatory argument, which leads to angry and passionate fucking. I said to myself, yup, that's my parents all over again. For three years I listened to the horrible names they called each other, trying to block out the shouting coming through my bedroom vent by blasting music from the ballet "Swan Lake," while I choreographed dances filled with joyous leaping and whirling. At least I can thank my parents' divorce for launching my choreo graphic career. The point that I'm trying to otv do make with this excerpt from my junior high diary is that Pioneer Theatre Company's production of from becom "Dinner with Friends" was an more llTinonnfl nlir rani AWAriAioa frtr V TT.P Trie fniir rViornrtoTe irt nhu iiTtPQfXunX CLBCttl -food the eat and real in prepare detailed sets designed by George Maxwell, where the sink actually produces water and Mr. Coffee makes a pot of decaf to go ii you keep the practical ing than donment? with dessert. and Gabe (Craig Bock-horI've had with my friends discussions on that carry and boyfriends, and they use certain colloquial words or phrases that I don't shy away from in my everyday conversation (profanity skittish people, beware). While the dueling couple of Tom and Beth were a painful reminder to me of what my parents were like when they were still married, my friend Sarah Jane, who saw the show with me, was laughing and rolling her eyes at the happily married couple of Karen and Gabe because their petty, but squabbles. Squabbles over what kind of seasoning an ancient Italian woman who they met in Rome used in her cooking reminded Sarah Jane of her own goofy parents. This made me wonder what the other friends, lovers and in the theater that night were thinking and feeling as they watched not only the end of a marriage, but more significantly in this play, the end of lifelong friendships. The true tragedy of "Dinner with Friends" is the betrayal and disbelief that Gabe and Karen feel when Tom and Beth reveal the messy details of their crumbling marriage. A flashback scene in Act II reveals that Tom, Beth, Karen (Joyce Cohen) life-partne- rs - o et mm fnmmw by MEGAN MATTHES good-nature- - VI Ui i make a profit." While Sherman acknowlto exist keep Ideals from being edges that he empathizes with trivialized? The only way I Elomire, "La Bete" doesn't autoknow is to resist Autonomy matically give this character cannot be compromised!" artistic martyrdom. As Hirson wrote in the introduction to "La David Hirson's satire "La k Bete" examines what the Bete," "Questions about where Theater's guest director justice lies are bound to linger, and the play itself is unlikely to Geoffrey Sherman refers to as "the ancient issues of what yield any simple or definitive answers." much is how and patronage "La Bite" is a complicated control patrons have over the arts. La Bete" also shows audiplay: linguistically (it is written , mem-ences the sacrifices the entirely in rhymed verse) and of the performing arts morally, as Elomire's decision to world are forced to make in "give it all up for the sake of order to succeed in their profesart" can be seen as courageous ' or foolish, depending on where sions. A theater company might your sympathies fall. Joshua Grant and Jeremy present four mainstream musicals a year as compensation for Ri5he. the actors playing Valere the money lost producing one and Elomire, respectively, comand praccontemporary drama, plicate this matter by deliverballet company in tically every ing two outstanding performances that attempt to perAmerica depends on an annual suade the audience toward production of "The Nutcracker" to avoid bankruptcy. their extremely disparate views "It's about the needs.cf comon the role of theater in society. mercialism and the needs of Grant as Valere makes his "Is Sherman. it soft art," says flamboyant, foppish entrance drugs; is it hard drugs?" early in Act I and immediately Set In 17th century France launches into a monoand loosely based on Moliere's covers that logue everything from Cicero, to amnesia, to play "The Misanthrope," "La tells the story of the modesty, to dishonesty and even acidic vinaigrette. famed playwright and actor Eloraire (an anagram of This feat of memorization "Mcliere" who has the and stamina is Impressive, but Grant could perhaps better appallingly tintalented street Valere forced into performer pace his monologue. He begins tti$ acting troupe by hii v.:; et an energy level, the and therefore isn't able to build Princess demanding patron, as the scene progressed. Contt Llomire is disgusted by This monologue, of course, is Vakrs's brand of lowbrow themeant to be tedious, as it establishes Valere as an irritating ater, and rather than compromise his own artistic ideals by presence, but it begins to Elomire with Valere, working plateau out, even at its frantic to decides leave his acting energy level, and bits of clever verse are lost as the troupe and the patronage of the princess to begin his career minds of the audience memfrom scratch. bers begin to wander. Sherman faces situations Grant's second act, though, is similar to Ilcmire'i in his own remarkable, as he manages to make the detestable Valere of professional life, saying, "Part of the reason that I'm not an the first act into a sympathetic, arKstic 'direcidrbf a theater.-- : see BASCOCK, page R16 right now is that I've disagreed bs "Dinner MtA Friends," the latest Pioneer Theatre Company production and the a irD in) with the apparent need to Bab-coc- y , r 7' X iy EH - ...... lu if you Bon "Does any way less radical ' 5' . Do by MEGAN MATTHES J f Tsne d v. i IILH r-- damned n) y Bt" Beth and Tom's marriage was almost certainly doomed from the moment they first fell for each other. This makes "Dinner with Friends" all the more heartbreaking as Gabe and Karen see that the shared life they built through common experiences with Beth and Tom is i built on an unstable foundation that has the potential to crumble beneath them, just as it crumbled for Tom and Beth. "Dinner with Friends" would be an unbearably sobering experience were it not for Margulies' witty, sarcastic dialogue that keeps the tears and pathos to a minimum. I have always preferred FTC's dramas over its musical-theate- r productions, and after seeing "Dinner with Friends," as well as "Communicating Doors" earlier this season, I've started to look forward to PTC shows that feature small, intimate casts. Director Charles Morey drew strong, polished performances out of all four actors, but Bockhorn as Gabe is the unquestionable standout In the first scene, Bockhorn lingers by his kitchen island like a sympathetic bartender behind the counter, emotions of his listening patiently to the wife and her best friend, but keeping a manly distance from their kitchen table territory. It is Bockhom's Gabe who has the answer to the play's final question, "How do you keep the practical from becoming more important than abandonment?" But Gabe's specific answer applies only to him and his wife free-flowin- , over-the-to- p Hir-son- 's ?; g Karen. Margulies demands that his audiences come up with their own effective solutions for creating and maintaining successful friendships and marriages. As a Los Angeles Times article by Patrick Pacheco quoted Margulies, "I'm not a philosopher or a psychologist, I'm an observer. I don't know how to sum things up in neat and tidy ways." "Dinner with Friends" is what Sarah Jane called "a heavy play," and some have even labeled it a "cynical" play. But this 2000 Pulitzer Prize winner for drama is full of hope and heroism, especially in the final image of Gabe and Karen "clinging to one another in the dark." As director Morey noted, "The play rests on a very simple philosophical proposition about human life: that we are all ultimately and finally, deeply and immutably alone. Anything we create to try to bridge the essentially unbridgeable gap from one soul to another is tenuous, fallible and potentially impermanent by the very nature of human biology. "It's a sober and not particularly cheering observation, but a corollary is implied that any successful marriage is a real triumph of courage, faith and will." Donald Margulies"'Dinner with Friends," directed by Charles Morey, is at Pioneer Memorial Theatre on the University of Utah campus through Jan. 26. For tickets, or order online at www.ptc.utah.edu. call 581-696- . "1 1 'A i f. V ; 1 V s Mtepfayt t the Ba&cetk flmsim Ian. U thcih c4 24 through 27. meganred-mag.co- RED MAGAZINE OPYi 3 1 I JANUARy 17, 2002 Rll |