The Dining Room, presented by the Lebanon Trail theater production, is an interpretation of the play by A. R. Gurney, first performed in 1981.
‘The Dining Room’ includes a series of 18 scenes with lighthearted, entertaining scenarios of things that happen in a family dining room. Each story is compiled with humorous anecdotes and many other factors which contributed to the life-like interpretation of each story.
The reason the play is in a short story format with multiple scenes is so the stories have the fast-paced and enjoyable effect the directors wanted them to have, instead of it being a play with a single storyline that went on for 2 hours straight.
For example, one such story was about an old lady who had dementia, in which her grandchildren tried to make her remember them by telling her stories from when they were younger. She eventually ends up remembering who the kids are, and the story concludes with a nice family dinner. I liked watching this story unfold because they made jokes throughout, but if they had gone beyond the 10 minutes, the story would have become redundant and maybe even boring. So, the formatting of the play was definitely an important part of the success of the play.
Another factor that made the play successful is the actors’ portrayal of each character. They embodied their characters very well, and even though each character was on for a short time due to the variety of stories, the actors left you with a lingering sense of comfort and curiosity.
The transition between each story was interesting as well. The actors for the following story would come out and start talking and the lights would switch over to them while the actors from the previous story were still on stage. So as each character talked, the tech crew would switch the lights over to them, separating the two different scenes with the help of the tech crew until the actors from the previous story walked off stage.
The costumes made by the costume crew were also well thought of and fit the characters the time period that the characters lived in. The sets and props themselves were also very appealing, each individually made by the tech crew. There’s a grand dining table set up right in the middle with furniture on the sides making the set even more life-like and comfy.
I also think the play was very sitcom-like. The humorous dialogues added in each little story was a good choice. It was really fun to watch each story play out.The comical plot twists in each one of them were very amusing. Each one of them had its own theme and unique characters, leaving viewers wondering what would happen next.
Without a doubt, The Dining Room was an amazing play, including witty, entertaining characters each with intriguing lives and anecdotes, talented actors, hardworking tech and costumes crews, and much more that all came together to create a wonderful production.
