Cambria’s Pewter Plough Playhouse invites theater fans to a ‘Dinner Party’

A tasty and tasteful stage show, “The Dinner Party,” is being served up at Cambria’s Pewter Plough Playhouse. Blending some favorite ingredients, the world’s most successful playwright, Neil Simon, daringly fuses farce and psychodrama to prepare this unique dish.

Just as a special recipe necessitates a skilled chef and high-quality ingredients, so does an excellent script require strong actors and direction. This production fulfills the criteria.

The one-act play, which had its world premiere in 1999, is set in the present at a private dining room in a high-class Paris restaurant.

The title and locale trigger images of a lively group of friends, enjoying a meal, glasses clinking, laughter, bonhomie. Au contraire. There is no dinner, no party, no friends.

Most of the play is a laugh-filled classic farce, with preposterous plots and confused characters just missing each other as they run in and out of doors — jumping to false conclusions.

However, the tables turn when six people end up locked in a room, saying disturbing private things and exposing each other and themselves.

The invited guests appear one at a time, not knowing what the occasion is. The men arrive first and immediately realize that, other than having business dealings with their host, they have zilch in common.

Claude Pichon (George Garrigues), intellectual, erudite and sophisticated, owns a highbrow bookstore. Albert Donay (Michael Shanley) who fancies himself an artist, runs his father’s auto-rental business. The superficial wealthy Andre Bouville (Gene Strohl) operates a famous international chain of men’s boutiques.

Two nervous women eventually appear as well: flamboyant Mariette Levieux (Beth Marshall), who writes popular novels, and respectable office worker Yvonne Fouchet (Joyce Calderone).

As the evening wears on and everyone is fed up awaiting the host, the lively Gabrielle Bounocelli (Toni Young) sweeps in and takes charge — turning the event into a type of therapy session.

Simon typically bases his plays on his own life experiences, which include five marriages.

Here, he shows his own growth and understanding of women, giving them voices to express their dissatisfaction at being treated like pretty playthings or submissive, dependent little creatures.

Simon’s snappy, rapid-fire dialogue is intelligent without being intellectual, incorporating humor ranging from high to low to appeal to all minds and sensibilities. The laughter keeps flowing.

The actors are superb on many levels. Garrigues manages to express chagrin with his face and posture and actually blushes when some dirty laundry gets aired.

Marshall, who comes off like a crusty Mae West, hilariously upstages the action, on her hands and knees, sucking oxygen through a floor vent in the locked room.

Young shows the grace and world-weary sophistication of her part, while also expressing her passion.

Although Calderone replaced the original actress only two weeks earlier, giving her less time to rehearse her role, she effortlessly portrays Yvonne. Strohl is unflappable, arrogant and aloof, and Shamley appropriately falsely stoic and clueless.

The actors’ smooth recovery of a few flubbed lines and false starts on opening night lent to the realism of the production, since that’s how people actually talk.

The soft-voiced Viv Goff uses a firm hand to direct. She also designed and assembled the ambience-appropriate set along with co-director David Manion.

Of Simon’s 38 plays, 29 have been made into movies. His 31st is an exception, giving it a freshness since the characters, dialogue and plot are unspoiled by familiarity.

This story was originally published March 9, 2016 at 11:49 AM with the headline "Cambria’s Pewter Plough Playhouse invites theater fans to a ‘Dinner Party’."