C4 THEATER REVIEW ‘Dinner’ explores the appetite for marriage by Nelson Pressley


There are two married couples in Donald Margulies’s “Dinner With Friends”: one suddenly splitting up, and the other quietly rocked by that fact. In Olney Theatre Center’s fine, occasional- ly shattering production, Beth and Tom — the breakups — seem like mismatched flakes, an acci- dent destined to happen. Gabe and Karen, on the other hand, appear great together. They’ve just been to Italy, the lamb and risotto they’ve pre- pared for dinner is sumptuous, and the kids, in the next room with videotapes and Gabe’s gour- met mac and cheese, are all right. Yet this exacting, unsettling


drama, especially well served by knowing, supple performances from Paul Morella and Julie-Ann Elliott, catches the merest flick- ers of disturbance between Gabe and Karen. The flameout be- tween Beth (Peggy Yates) and Tom (Jeffries Thaiss) infects Gabe and Karen with uncertain- ty, and the familiar yet gingerly way Morella and Elliott deal with each other is so right it’s spooky. “Dinner With Friends” won the


Pulitzer Prize a decade ago, then was quickly filmed for HBO, and it’s an exemplary bit of old-fash- ioned playwriting. (Weirdly, this is the Washington area’s stage premiere.) The scenes are long and exploratory, catching the four characters in shifting moods and uncertain allegiances. The details — domestic business in kitchens and bedrooms — are mundane but revealing. Watch the perfectly navigated traffic in the first scene, for instance, with Beth being served at the table as Gabe and Karen glide through the kitchen, keeping wineglasses and dinner plates filled. The food is good and even the slightly testy chat is bright; they’ve done it a million times. That homey repetition is both


what binds and what grinds, and it’s Tom who makes the case for marriage as an untenable strait- jacket. Director Jim Petosa takes a gamble with Tom, letting the overexcited Thaiss implausibly leap up and down on beds and couches while arguing. It’s dis- tracting: Thaiss’s Tom, the energy jolt from his offstage mistress notwithstanding, is bizarrely hyper, making you question the


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KLMNO


WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2010


An ‘American’ in Italy, shooting straight and missing out on the fun


movie reviewfrom C1 STAN BAROUH


SURPRISE ON THE MENU:Tom (Jeffries Thaiss) and Beth (Peggy Yates) have a violent breakup in Olney Theatre Center’s production of Donald Margulies’s Pulitzer-winning “Dinner With Friends.”


character’s supposed deep friendship with the cooler Gabe and Karen. There’s no rapport, and this Tom is so disruptive he’s like a rock hurled through a win- dow. That violent turn connects di-


rectly with James Kronzer’s ro- tating, shellshocked set in the cozy Mulitz-Gudelsky Theatre Lab. The interiors are rendered as a striking aquamarine wall with deep pocks and crisscross cut marks — more visual un- derlining of the theme than we need. The script, after all, seems too natural for stylized interpreta-


tions; Margulies’s ear for the ebb and flow of intimate, overlapping dialogue bears the cold truth of realism. Thaiss is closer to this mark in a late scene between Tom and Gabe that explores the men’s views of love and friendship, and it’s a terrific encounter. The same sort of thing happens with Yates’s portrayal of Beth: Her toned- down, quietly hurt exchange with Karen is much more compelling than her oddly quirky, nervously flitting business as a younger Beth in a flashback. The consistently sensational base to all this is Morella and El- liott, who are utterly on the mark


with the quick flare-ups and care- ful diplomacy of long-haul rela- tionships. Morella has displayed an uncanny ease in other Margu- lies plays with Petosa, and here he channels that collected de- meanor into a middle-aged man’s uneasy truce with life. Elliott, playing the efficient, borderline-brusque Karen, beau- tifully balances intimidation and vulnerability. She’s formidable, he’s meek, and together these ac- tors exquisitely illuminate Mar- gulies’s scenes from an enviably good, desperately fragile mar- riage.


style@washpost.com Pressley is a freelance writer.


Dinner With Friends by Donald Margulies. Directed by Jim Petosa. Costumes, Howard Vincent


Kurtz; lights, Daniel MacLean Wagner; sound, Christopher Baine. About 2 hours 10 minutes. Through Sept. 26 at the Olney Theatre Center, 2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Rd. Call 301-924-3400 or visit www. olneytheatre.org.


ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER’S


restrained but somehow extrav- agant joys to behold; here he plays someone so controlled and closed-off that he’s virtu- ally inert. Once Jack dispatches his would-be foes in Scandinavia, he departs for Italy, where his boss (Johan Leysen) suggests he lay low in one of Abruzzo’s medieval hill towns and await orders. Fans hoping to find Clooney partaking of Italy’s sensuous pleasures and, on the way, inner peace (“Eat, Pray, Shoot”?) will be sorely disap- pointed to find their heartthrob leading a monastic existence of exercise, vigilance and visits to local cafes in scenes that could easily end either in an assassi- nation or impromptu filming of a Nespresso commercial. When Jack starts work on a high-test rifle for a gorgeous cli- ent named Mathilde (Thekla Reuten), he also begins to visit a nearby brothel, striking up a carnal friendship with Clara (Violante Placido), whose hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold character rhymes note for note with Jack’s quiet-but-honor- able-loner. (American audienc- es won’t recognize “The Amer- ican’s” supporting players, but its gallery of attractive new Eu- ropean faces surely counts as one of the film’s greatest strengths.) That “The American” traffics in such well-worn character types could be forgiven if the filmmakers gave them even the gentlest of twists. But Corbijn — a former music video direc-


tor who made a promising de- but in 2007 with the equally el- egant Joy Division biopic, “Con- trol” — plays it straight, treating Jack’s every move and glance with fetishistic rever- ence. After such a methodical succession of carefully orches- trated but bloodless tableaux, “The American” finally asks the audience to care — much too late and with way too little by way of emotional investment. Do the movies really need yet another hit man embarking on one last job before retiring into peaceful domesticity? Do they need another thug portrayed as a disciplined craftsman with the soul of an artist (in this case, expressed through a love of butterflies)? At one point in “The American,” the filmmak- ers pay homage to Sergio Le- one, in a scene where “Once Upon a Time in the West” plays on TV in a bar. The reference is logical but unearned. What Le- one understood, and Corbijn is still learning, is how to deploy the hoariest archetypes and genre conventions in ways that make even pulp entertainment artful and art entertaining. hornadaya@washpost.com


The American BB


(103 minutes, at area theaters) is rated R for violence, sexual content and nudity.


To see a trailer for "The American," visit


washingtonpost.com/movies.


GILES KEYTE/FOCUS FEATURES VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS


IT’S BEEN DONE: George Clooney’s honorable loner and Violante Placido’s warmhearted hooker are well-worn types.


BBBB Masterpiece


RATINGS GUIDE BBB Very Good


B Poor BB Okay 0 Waste of Time


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PHOTO OF FLORENCE LACEY BY CHRIS MUELLER.


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