[NEohioPAL] Review of "The Big Meal" at Dobama Theatre

Bob Abelman r.abelman at adelphia.net
Mon Dec 9 20:59:58 PST 2013


At Dobama's "The Big Meal," we give thanks for family angst 

 

Bob Abelman

News-Herald, Morning Journal, Chagrin Valley Times, Solon Times,

Geauga Times Courier

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics 

 

This review will appear in the News-Herald on 12/13/13

 

 

'Tis the season when local theaters are offering visions of sugar plums and time-honored tales of righteousness, redemption and resurrection.  Leave it to Dobama Theatre to offer its own unique, slightly twisted take on the holidays.

 

Like most seasonal storytelling, Dan LeFranc's "The Big Meal" is all about family.  The entire 90-minute play takes place in a restaurant where a young couple, Sam and Nicole, meet for the first time and share a few moments of awkward conversation.  The story then kicks into overdrive as we witness their courtship, marriage, separation, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.  Life and death, over the course of 70 years and always over a main course at the restaurant, flash forward before our eyes.  

 

Rapid-fire transitions in time are signaled by simple shifts in the lighting.  Multiple generations of family are all played by the same eight-member ensemble, which represent new characters with a new coat or hat and a slightly altered posture.  As Sam and Nicole age, older actors take over the roles while the younger actors return as the next generation of kin.  

 

While clever, such stage craftiness is not original.  Thornton Wilder's 1931 one-act play "Long Christmas Dinner" offers in accelerated motion 90 Christmas dinners in the Bayard home.  "The Dining Room," a play by A.R. Gurney, is set in a single room where 18 scenes from different households overlap and intertwine.  Frank Rich, in his 1982 The New York Times review, described the play as "a series of snapshots."  

 

So, too, is LeFranc's play, which opened in Chicago in 2011 and had a limited run off-Broadway in 2012.

 

"Gather ye rosebuds while ye may" is the obvious message in each of these modern-day morality plays.  In "The Big Meal," however, the focus is on the thorns rather than the soft and flagrant petals.  

 

Edited out of LeFranc's condensed genealogical journey are the happy times and Hallmark moments - the stuff of traditional holiday plays and the works of Wilder and Gurney.  Instead, we get scene after scene of the very family-inspired angst we go to the theater to escape from.  



"The Big Meal" is an ancestor.com search from hell that traces congenital character flaws and bad habits as they metastasize from one generation to the next. 

 

Although the anguish that trims this family tree is buffered by creative construction and plenty of humor, the play is still a brutal assault on the ties that bind us.  It is, at times, too close to the bone to be entertaining. 

 

The takeaway from seeing this production, then, is to witness the wonderful artistry with which it is presented. 

 

This production boasts a uniformly stellar ensemble that consists of Tom Woodward, Derdriu Ring, Geoff Knox, Llewie Nuñez, Bob Goddard, Anne McEvoy and the youngsters Emily Kenville and Ryan Vincent.  Their intricate and intriguing portraits take all that is appalling and make it compelling.



Director Joel Hammer does not linger on anything for too long in this play, which keeps the audience engaged throughout.  He does, however, allow fleeting moments of sentimentality to work their way into each passing of a key character.  With the rest of the ensemble looking on from seats on the periphery of Laura Carson's authentic-looking restaurant, these moments have added poignancy in light of the intense family dynamics that dominate this play. 



Sleigh bells ring, are you listening?  Well, the folks at Dobama have something less festive but more enticing in mind for the holidays. 

 

"The Big Meal" runs through January 5 at Dobama Theatre, 2340 Lee Road, Cleveland Heights. For tickets, which range from $10 to $26, call 216-932-3396 or visit www.dobama.org.
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