What keeps a couple together over the years? Once the bloom of passion wears off and the doldrums of practical family life take priority over spontaneous afternoon sex or thoughtfully planned romantic moments, how does a relationship survive? And what happens to friend circles when a couple splits up?
Donald Margulies’ 2000 Pulitzer Prize-winning Dinner with Friends explores these issues through two 40-something married couples: the happily in sync Gabe (Brad Goretz) and Karen (Elizabeth Marshall Black) and the fracturing Beth (Katherine Rinaldi) and Tom (Norman Dillon).
Longtime friends, the couples have watched each other fall in love, start families and share meaningful moments.
As food writers, Gabe and Karen are natural dinner-party hosts for their friends. But over a meal at their place (that Tom couldn’t make it due to travel), Beth tearfully confesses that Tom is leaving her for another woman.
Of course, the betrayal isn’t that simple; Margulies gives us layers of culpability that explain the marriage breakdown. Not all of them land well, even after all these years. Rather than equitable wrongdoing, Tom comes across as a jerk.
But the point is, Margulies tries to show how things fall apart and how, after the ravages of time, even a happy couple can fear the same fate coming round the mountain.
One wishes this same understanding of things not going well and the pitfalls waiting around the corner could be applied to Dirt Dog’s production, under the direction of Curtis Barber. We know the show isn’t working, but it’s hard to pinpoint exactly why.
Perhaps like many breakups, it isn’t one big thing but rather death by a thousand cuts.
For a show about divorce, this one’s notably toothless. We see Tom and Beth fight, but there’s no real tension there—no heart in the anger. Just words said.
The heartbreak goes the same way, milquetoast at best. Beth should be devastated yet can only offer up a few wooden sniffles while Tom’s disappointment lands robotically flat.
Marguiles’ play is by no means a heavy drama – more a dramedy. Still, some drama has to happen, and here it just hovers in limp noodle land.
Our happy couple fares not much better. With actors we’ve come to know and admire, you’d think Marshall Black and Goertz could muster up some chemistry, but instead they too feel mechanical.
Hard not to be when you’re given clunky, unlikely lines like “Are you getting amorous with me?”, said in moments of friskiness but delivered with no irony whatsoever.
The play suffers most in the breakout scenes when the men meet alone to discuss the divorce and its aftermath. Here everything feels forced.
What 40-year-old men from the early 2000s get together over beers and talk about “making love” with their new hot girlfriend? Or Perimenopause? Lines like “Christ Gabe,” said in frustration, carry the same weight as “this cake is delicious.”
Is the problem the acting, writing, direction or all of the above? Probably yes, yes and yes.
In the end, whatever message Margulies wanted to impart is lost in a mushy helping of ho-hum.
It’s an odd swing-and-a-miss from the team at Dirt Dogs, who often take award-winning modern plays and make them exciting and relevant for contemporary times. But just like marriages, not all productions live happily ever after.
Dinner With Friends runs through November7 at MATCH, 3400 Main. For tickets visit matchhouston.org. $35
