The Dining Room
by A. R. Gurney
Dramatist Play Service

Grining Boy The dining room -- the last bastion of stability, family values, and tradition. But change is inevitable, even in the dining room. With over sixty characters and twenty interwoven vignettes, The Dining Room portrays the changing, disappearing world of the upper-middle-class WASP. With exceptional range, deep humanity, and constant humour, story after story emerges to paint a picture of a changing culture, a picture of loss and grief, of nostalgia and defiance, of family strife and the tough bonds of love. Each actor portrays a variety of characters, ranging from teasing boys to gruff grandfathers, giggling girls to Alzheimer-inflicted grandmother. Each scene is set in a different time and place, melding from one into the next smoothly and often humourously. The Dining Room is a wonderful play for actors but proved to be a hit with our audience as well. Accustomed to laughing at our previous farces and comedies, they were also moved by the poignancy and humanity of this one. Written for six actors (3M, 3W) we used four men, five women and one pre-teenage girl in our cast, allowing newer actors to break onto the stage easier. Although part of the delight of the play is in seeing the actors portray a host of characters, a larger cast was also successful.