Rude Awakenings of Middle Age. ‘Dinner With Friends’ Is Revived by the Roundabout
Charles IsherwoodFebruary 14, 2014: Does time erode everything it touches? This painful question lies at the heart of Dinner With Friends, Donald Margulies’s delicate-hued, Pulitzer Prize-winning drama about two married couples who come to a crossroads in their long friendship when one pair breaks up. In the Roundabout Theater Company’s new production, the first major New York revival since the play was seen Off Broadway in 1999, acceptance that the passing years often bring unwanted change, loss and diminishment settles most deeply in the heart of Gabe, one half of the unsplit couple. Portrayed by Jeremy Shamos (Clybourne Park) with an affecting sense of churning confusion, Gabe is stunned into silence when he hears that his best friend Tom (Darren Pettie) is leaving his wife, Beth (Heather Burns), after 12 years of seeming contentment.
READ THE REVIEW