"The Dining Room" Provides a Showcase for Comedy

Robert's Reviews - June 29, 2005

The Dining Room Review

The Cary Players' presentation of THE DINING ROOM by A. R. Gurney is a fine community-theater production by an up-and-coming theatrical troupe under the sure-handed direction of Debra Zumbach Grannan. Grannan, who played a cameo as a real estate agent at the start of the June 26th Sunday matinee, has cast this episodic comedy well and elicited crisp characterizations from almost every cast member.

In a show that has 19 scenes and no recurring characters, there are a number of vivid comic vignettes, all performed at or around a big, expensive dining-room table and matching chairs. Grannan sets a brisk pace and set designers Bob Grannan, Brad Munda, and Greg Lytle; costume designer Diana Waldier; hair and make-up designer Kat Thompson; and props mistress Gale O'Neal, assisted by Cheryl McConnell, all make important contributions to the show's look and feel.

After Grannan shows the old home place to a prospective buyer (played by her husband Bob Grannan), Susan Berry and Wilson Pietzsch get the comic ball rolling with their incisive performances as Sally and Arthur, a middle-aged brother and sister divvying up their mother's estate.

Berry and Pietzsch go on to play an amusing array of characters, and so do Chris Brown, Kathryn Flanagan, Thom Haynes, Lindsay Kilgore, Nicola Lefler, Alex Marshall, Cheryl McConnell, Holly Minter, and Steve Whetzel.

I especially enjoyed Steve Whetzel and Thom Haynes as two guys discussing converting the dining room into a psychiatrist's office; a children's birthday party, with Nicola Lefler as Winkie, the seven-year-old birthday girl; Kathryn Flanagan and Lindsay Kilgore as two young women on the prowl while their parents are away; Susan Berry and Thom Haynes as illicit lovers shocked by the unexpected return home of her son (Wilson Pietzsch); Alex Marshall and Cheryl McConnell as a nephew who wants to photograph his aging aunt's place setting for an ANTHROPOLOGY project on WASPs; and Chris Brown and Holly Minter as a father and daughter who have an eye-opening chat about the impending breakup of her marriage.

All in all, the current Cary Players' production of THE DINING ROOM serves up laughs in every scene. So, consider this review a mere appetizer for a delightful full-course theatrical entertainment.

The Cary Players present THE DINING ROOM Wednesday-Friday, June 22-24 and June 29-July 1, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, June 26, 7:30 p.m. at the Page-Walker Arts & History Center, 119 Ambassador Loop, Cary, North Carolina. $14 ($12 students and seniors). 919/469-4061 or http://www.caryplayers.org/tickets.htm.

NOTE: The June 29th performance will be audio described by Arts Access.