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It's Margulies's structural and satisfying conceit that though their names and other minute details may vary, couples Gabe and Karen (Jeremy Shamos and Marin Hinkle) and Tom and Beth (Darren Pettie and Heather Burns) are largely identical pictures of middle-age malaise separated by only the thinnest thread of self-control. One could become the other instantaneously if circumstances shifted just a little, and their denials of that fact are what lead to their happiness, their sorrow, and, most significantly, their inability to tell the two apart. Gabe and Karen are horrified to learn from Beth that her 12-year marriage to Tom is ending because he slept with his travel agent—or is it? Once he gets to present his side of the story (to Gabe; Karen isn't that keen on listening), Tom paints a picture of lovelessness that encouraged him to seek warmer and happier beds elsewhere. True, his strife with Beth has led to some hot rage sex, but it's cold comfort at the chilly end of a partnership that used to burn bright. What's tougher still is the reality this reveals to Gabe and Karen, who, if not exactly discontent, no longer have the spark they once did. Tiny arguments blossom into explosive disagreements and their intimate life isn't much better, but they're staying together. Why? Good question, both wonder, as Tom and Beth begin to pursue individual lives once again and seem to find considerably more success than their decades-old friends are able to manage.
There is, however, no hint of indifference or disinterest in Margulies's depictions of them, which leads to a few lulls in this production when director Pam MacKinnon and her performers inject a few of their own. MacKinnon's staging, on a grey-box set by Allen Moyer (and lit, with emotional acuity, by Jane Cox) that seems to grudgingly accommodate a few extra tracked set pieces when necessary, is at times casual nearly to the point of lethargy, a tactic that doesn't underscore Margulies's even-handedness so much as distract you from it. MacKinnon, in fact, manages genuine heat only in one scene: the second, set between Tom and Beth after their secrets are revealed and they're forced to confront each other on private turf. More than any other section of the play, this one points up the behind-closed-doors challenges husband and wife face by highlighting Tom and Beth's capabilities of being brittle, brutal, and sensual all at the same time. This kind of rush of emotions ought to inform all of the other interactions as well, but too infrequently does. Though Pettie and Burns nail this scene, building up to its, er, climax with a keen recognition of its power, they're less effective elsewhere in channeling these same energies. Pettie depicts the same pent-up victim throughout, and Burns marshals a mild, untraceable anger—traits that make sense neither in a brief flashback to Tom and Beth's first fraught meeting or several months after their split, when they ought to be coming into their own. Shamos and Hinkle shine most brightly in Gabe and Karen's quieter moments, when their characters aren't able to avoid each other or the questions that Tom and Beth's shakeup is thrusting into their lives. The alienation and uncertainty that develops between them and grows slowly as the play unfolds are powerful forces that the actors and MacKinnon make the most of; and Shamos's forceful encouragement and Hinkle's energetic reluctance give the two terrific chemistry together. But we also must see them as integral parts of other pairings—specifically, between the genders—and it's there that Shamos and Hinkle convince less. Neither is transformed much by exposure to the apparent freedom they witness in their friends; in subsequent second-act scenes when the men and women separately meet to discuss their evolution (or lack thereof), the spark of insight that ought to fuel them to their final destination is too faint to get them there. They sputter when they should speed. Even so, Dinner with Friends still engages and even moves because it captures the paralytic feelings of being trapped within cages of your own creation: whether that of a marriage or that of a divorce. Neither choice, Margulies argues, may be permanent, but there's no way of escaping the repercussions of the direction in which you head. If it could be clearer this time around how everyone gets (or fails to get) where they're going, there is no question about their journeys—happy or fraught, successful or otherwise—being worth the effort.
Dinner with Friends
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