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The Post-Standard News
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October 31, 2003 'Dining Room' serves challenge for cast Joan Vadeboncoeur, Entertainment Columnist A.R. Gurney's "The Dining Room" sets a tough task for community theater performers. Appleseed Productions' current mounting asks six actors to play at least a half-dozen roles in comedy, drama and tragedy, all anchored in the title room. Among the interwoven vignettes is a funny one, about the fussy husband who chides his wife for typing on his antique table, and a crowd-pleaser, in which a youth begs his grandfather for money to attend a fashionable prep school. Other types are a daughter who comes home with her children to tell her father she's divorced and a wife who teaches a maid the niceties of table linen, fine china and Waterford crystal. At last Friday's opening, it was clear that not all of the ensemble was up to the rigors of so many characters that required shifting ages often. Still, at least once, each cast member rose to the occasion, some more often than others. Director Patricia Elise Catchouny was faced with the challenge of having to slip her actors on and off quickly and also sometimes to maintain two sets of onstage actions. That she met handily. Replacing Lanny Freshman, whom I saw as the second actor, is Keith David Reeves. He plays today, Saturday and Nov. 7 and 8. Joan Vadeboncoeur writes Monday through Thursday in CNY, Friday in Weekend and Sunday in Stars Magazine. Joan Vadeboncoeur's column appears Monday through Thursday in CNY, Friday in Weekend and Sunday in Stars Magazine. Copyright © 2003, The Post-Standard. |
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