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Title: Dinner with Friends by Donald Margulies ISBN: 1-55936-194-8 Publisher: Theatre Communications Group Pub. Date: 01 June, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.17 (12 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Real people, real issues, and hard questions.
Comment: Donald Margulies' "Dinner with Friends" received the 2000 Pulitzer Prize in Drama, a well-deserved award. The play deals with two couples who have been close for a long time, but now one couple is going through a divorce. Throughout the play, relationships are questioned and reorganized. The still-married couple find themselves assessing the strength of their own relationship and mourning the little corner of their world which dies when their friends divorce.
"Dinner with Friends" is a rare gem--a questing, moral play that takes an honest look at the issues of commitment and fidelity in today's world. I don't think I've seen a new play which delved so deep and true into the heart of an everyday issue, and with everyday characters, since David Mamet's "Oleanna." The last two scenes bare the relationships and souls of the characters so fully (and, thankfully, without overt hysterics) that I literally got the chills.
In scene three of the second act Gabe meets his friend Tom a few months after Tom and his wife have split. Tom is living with his travel agent girlfriend, and Gabe quickly tires of Tom's rationalizations and his descriptions of the fantasy life he has constructed around himself. Tom talks fanatically about his newfound freedom, and Gabe tells him he's starting to sound "like a Moonie." Gabe finally voices the essential problem he has with Tom's decision to leave his family. Gabe says, "The key to civilization, I think, is fighting the impulse to chuck it all." Then Tom tries to tell Gabe that maybe Gabe's own marriage isn't all that it appears to be; Tom has heard Gabe complain in the past, and Tom says that he knows the signs of trouble. The difference between the two men, however, is that Gabe believes in working at his marriage and cannot imagine ever giving up. "You don't get it," Gabe says. "I _cling_ to Karen; I _cling_ to her. Imagining a life without her doesn't excite me, it just makes me anxious."
Rating: 2
Summary: Excruciating Dinner Party
Comment: Margulies's play is interesting, but certainly not deserving of the Pulitzer Prize. The analyzation of characters is fairly sterotypical at times. In other instances, character portrayal is simply poor, as I find with Gabe. Gabe, at times, seems to border on being the "foppish" stock character of classical comedy; in the second act, however, he becomes more serious, seeming to deviate from his previous personality traits.
Also, elements of the play are unrealistic. For instance: rage can be an aphrodisiac, but two people who are physically beating each other do not make such a quick transition to love-making as Margulies suggests. Also, Margulies's use of conversation is not believable. Characters are always interrupting each other, which is certainly true in real life. However, in this play they do it constantly, and nobody ever seems to notice. The characters do not become upset at each other, despite the fact that other characters continually interrupt them.
An interesting play, certainly. But not nearly as good as one would believe, considering its awards.
Rating: 3
Summary: "...then all of a sudden the earth cracks open."
Comment: I listened to part of this play during a radio broadcast as I was driving to an appointment the other day. I found it compelling and disturbing, upsetting and fascinating...all at once. It doesn't read with the same energy it has when well-acted, but is nevertheless worth the hour or two it takes to read it.
Just the idea of being in a committed relationship is frightening for many people, and the reality can cause one to feel trapped (or alive--or both). "Dinner with Friends" captures many of the unsettling aspects of the marriages of two separate couples. Though one marriage remains intact as the other falls apart and becomes nothing but history (and two kids), the way conversations, emotions and events play out are not exactly as expected.
Although I disliked all of the characters in this play--they're simply too fake and uptight for my taste--I think "Dinner with Friends" has enough value to make reading it worthwhile. Not only does Margulies's play highlight many of the specters which lurk around the edges of some committed relationships; it also brings to light the important and interesting distinction between story and truth in everyday life.
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