Dinner With Friends

by Donald Margulies Narrated by Matthew Arkin, Lisa Emery, Full Cast

Overview

Winner of the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for drama, Dinner with Friends examines the lives of two couples and the repercussions of divorce on their friendships. With wit, compassion and consummate skill, playwright Donald Margulies weighs the cost of breaking up - and of staying together.

An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring Matthew Arkin, Lisa Emery, Kevin Kilner and Deirdre O'Connell.

Editorial Reviews

The San Francisco Examiner

A breezy comedy of modern manners that turns poignant and deeply affecting by its end. Margulies touches chords that resonate with a deep affecting humanity.

NY Daily News

… full of life, warmth, laughs and wisdom …

The New York Times

… wry and keenly observed and bathed in the unspoken sorrow that can sneak up on you in middle age …

New York Magazine

Two married couples have been best friends for years. In their Connecticut home, Karen and Gabe, international food writers, are giving a dinner for Beth and Tom, which he doesn't attend. It emerges from the heartbroken Beth that he has left her for another woman. Gabe and Karen are almost as crushed, having expected 'to grow old and fat together, the four of us.' When Tom shows up at his home in the next scene, late at night, he is enraged that Beth broke the news of their breakup in his absence. Late as it is, he rushes over to his friends in the next scene to present his side of the story. Act Two begins with another dinner, twelve and half years earlier, in a summer house on Martha's Vineyard, where Karen and Gabe are introducing Beth to Tom. Then we skip five months after the events in Act One, as Beth reveals to Karen … that she has fallen in love with an old friend whom she intends to marry … Later that day, in a Manhattan bar, Tom, a lawyer, tells Gabe about his [newfound] happiness, to which Gabe reacts sourly. Still later that night, Gabe and Karen are going to bed in the Vineyard house, and discuss the Tom-and-Beth situation, as well as their own [marriage] … clinging to it like the shipwrecked to their raft … From this already you can gather that there is skillful construction here, as well as keen psychological insight … Donald Margulies is establishing himself as one of our leading playwrights.

Time Magazine

… Margulies writes about relationships with such intelligence and spiky humor that his comedy-drama … becomes something quite wonderful.

David Kaufman

This is a smart and subtle play that understands there are no easy answers as people evolve and relationships settle into routine.
—Daily News

Debra Jo Immergut

Donald Margulies has drawn one of the most complex and convincing portraits of a marriage in recent memory.
— The Wall Street Journal

John Simon

Dinner with Friends is entertainment as succulent as it is sobering.
— New York Magazine

NY Times

...wry and keenly observed and bathed in the unspoken sorrow that can sneak up on you in middle age...

San Francisco Examiner

A breezy comedy of modern manners that turns poignant and deeply affecting by its end. Margulies touches chords that resonate with a deep affecting humanity.

Time

...Margulies writes about relationships with such intelligence and spiky humor that his comedy-drama...becomes something quite wonderful.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171527549
Publisher:	L.A. Theatre Works
Publication date:	01/01/2003
Edition description:	Unabridged

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