Dinner with Friends by Donald Margulies

First published: 2000

First produced: 1998, at the Actors Theatre of Louisville, Kentucky

Type of plot: Domestic realism

Time of work: The 1990’s, with a flashback to twelve years earlier

Locale: Connecticut and Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts

Principal Characters:

• Gabe, a food critic
• Karen, his wife and editor
• Tom, a lawyer and Gabe’s best friend
• Beth, Tom’s wife and Karen’s best friend

The Play

A two-act play, Dinner with Friends intertwines the lives of Gabe and Karen, food writers, and their close friends Tom and his wife Beth. Act 1 opens over dinner in Gabe and Karen’s kitchen on a snowy evening in Connecticut. Tom is away on business, and Beth sits quietly as Gabe and Karen animatedly describe their recent excursion to Italy. In between descriptions of the old Italian cook and her pasta pomodoro, and shouts from the children upstairs, the scene is one of warm, if somewhat fussy, banter about food and travel. Beth soon dissolves into tears and informs the distressed couple that her husband has had an affair and wants a divorce. The scene concludes as Beth prepares to leave, but not without sampling dessert.

The scene shifts to Tom and Beth’s cluttered bedroom, where Beth prepares for bed. Tom enters, apologizing for the intrusion. Beth confesses that she divulged their marital troubles. Furious, Tom accuses Beth of biasing their friends against him. Each angrily reminds the other of past injuries. The argument turns violent when Beth slaps Tom, and Tom throws Beth onto the bed, pinning her there. However, the violence arouses both, and the scene ends with lovemaking.

Later that evening snuggling on the sofa, Gabe and Karen discuss how Karen would have responded if Gabe had been unfaithful. Headlights appear through the window. Tom enters and asks for a fair hearing, but Karen refuses to listen and leaves the room. Over leftovers and wine, Gabe tries to offer advice, but Tom does not want it. “My head is spinning with shoulds and shouldn’ts,” says Tom. “It may be news to you but I’ve been living with this for a long time.” Frustrated, Tom leaves Gabe, who sits pensively as the act ends.

Act 2 begins twelve and one-half years earlier on Martha’s Vineyard. Newlyweds Gabe and Karen are preparing dinner for Tom and Beth, having arranged a “date” for their friends, who have not yet met. Once the guests have arrived, Tom attempts to make conversation, bringing up his long friendship with Gabe. Karen touts Beth’s skill as an artist, and Tom, who finds Beth attractive, tries to snatch her sketchbook. This sudden intimacy makes Beth uncomfortable, so she tries her hand at cutting scallions. Unfortunately, Beth cuts her finger. As the scene concludes, Tom gallantly bandages it and they notice a mutual attraction.

The play returns to the present. Several months have passed since the breakup. Over lunch, Beth tells Karen that she is planning to marry a lawyer from Tom’s firm. Karen urges Beth to slow down. Beth explodes, not in anger but in release. “You need me to be a mess; you’re invested in it. Every Karen needs a Beth.” Meanwhile, Gabe meets Tom in a Manhattan bar. Free from the ties of family, Tom’s extramarital relationship has invigorated his sex life. Gabe confesses that Tom sounds like a stranger to him. Tom maintains that while his marriage was a lie his friendship with Gabe and Karen was real. To Gabe, Tom’s decision has hurt them all. As the scene concludes, Gabe learns that Beth had an affair ten years earlier with the lawyer that she is currently seeing. Tom leaves and Gabe knows he’ll never see his friend again.

Later that night, in the summer home on Martha’s Vineyard, Gabe and Karen engage in a practiced bedtime ritual as they discuss their conversations with Tom and Beth. Shaken by the change in her friends, Karen wonders why Gabe seems unable to articulate his feelings about their own marriage. Her frustration builds until Gabe stumbles incoherently onto the truth. He misses the passion of their youth. What has happened to them is “what happens when practical matters . . . begin to outweigh . . . abandon.” Deeply saddened by this discovery, Karen wonders, “How do we not get lost?” They hold each other as the play concludes.

Dramatic Devices

Much of the play’s “cut to the bone” realism is achieved by the use of overlapping dialogue. Characters engage in a very natural, humorous interplay of ideas, often speaking simultaneously. At times, the lines illustrate the comfort that the speakers feel with one another. During the opening scene, Karen and Gabe seem to speak as one when they describe Italian cuisine:

Gabe: Anyway, the pomodoro.

Karen: The pomodoro was amazing.

Gabe: And simple.

Karen: Amazingly simple.

Gabe and Karen seem like Olympic skaters, executing an improvised routine with practiced ease. Here Margulies uses the humor of simultaneous speech to create the impression of closeness. However, Margulies also uses overlapping dialogue as a symbol of the characters’ inability to communicate deeply. As Karen and Beth share lunch several months after Beth’s breakup with Tom, Karen tries to catch up with her friend:

Karen: I’d leave messages and you’d wouldn’t call back right away. . . .

Beth: (Over “. . . right away. . . .”) I know, I’m sorry. I needed some time to myself.

You know.

Karen: You’re not mad at me or anything, are you?

Beth: (Over “. . . are you?”) Mad at you? Why should I be mad at you?

Beth’s too-quick responses signal Karen that something is indeed wrong. She is unable to discover the problem until Beth angrily accuses her of wanting Beth to be “a mess.” Margulies’s use of run-on sentences and overlapping dialogue illustrates the subtext underneath each scene.

Just as Pinter does in Betrayal (pr., pb. 1978) and Stephen Sondheim does in Merrily We Roll Along (pr. 1981, pb. 1982), Margulies uses flashback to layer bittersweet irony upon the play’s action. The flashback scene in act 2 introduces the characters as idealistic, vigorous men and women in their thirties. Impressions developed in act 1 color the way the audience perceives each character. Tom appears more sensual and more childish. Beth’s flightiness seems to stem from the artist-role she chooses to play. Gabe and Karen, madly in love, are physically affectionate in a way that appears nowhere else in the play.

Finally, Margulies frequently draws on food preparation and dining as a metaphor. During the flashback scene at Martha’s Vineyard, Gabe and Karen work as one in the kitchen, but Beth is unable to master even the simplest of tasks without injuring herself. Ironically, while folding down the bed with practiced sterility, Karen and Gabe comment on how happy Tom and Beth seem now that they have found new partners. The couple experience more passion in the kitchen discussing and preparing food than in the bedroom.

At first, food provides comfort for Tom and Beth. They eagerly consume large portions of Karen and Gabe’s perfectly prepared food, even as each describes marital loneliness. It is not advice they seek from their friends, but a listening ear and a second helping. Toward the end of the play, as each describes his or her new relationships, food is not discussed. As Tom and Beth move away from their friends, they rely less upon food for comfort.

Critical Context

In an interview conducted shortly after Dinner with Friends received the 2000 Pulitzer Prize in drama, Margulies mused that loss is a common theme in all of his plays. Earlier plays like Sight Unseen (pr. 1991, pb. 1992) and What’s Wrong with This Picture? (pr. 1985, pb. 1988) feature characters who struggle with lost values, lost love, or lost hope. Often this loss occurs within a tumultuous family unit, reflecting the author’s desire to find his father. More recently, Dinner with Friends and Collected Stories: A Play (pr. 1996, pb. 1998) focus deeply upon the impact of changing relationships among family and friends. While themes of loss and alienation within the family setting have been the focus of many of Margulies’s plays, Dinner with Friends is the first of his plays to explore both themes with such clarity. Certainly, The Loman Family Picnic (pr., pb. 1989) spins a wickedly absurd tale around a desperately unhappy family. However, Margulies’s approach in Dinner with Friends seems more seasoned, less anxious. In Dinner with Friends, Margulies speaks with the voice of middle age.

Perhaps that maturing explains the play’s real resonance. Dinner with Friends takes the audience on a very personal, unpredictable journey through the soul of marital relationships and the interconnectedness that many postwar “Baby Boomers” feel with friends who seem closer than family. Margulies’s characters shimmer, not because they are articulate but because their motives and passions are complex. The audience’s perception of them shifts from scene to scene. In this respect, Dinner with Friends rises above the typical domestic drama.

Beyond the single flashback, the play adopts very few dramatic conventions, which is surprising when one examines Margulies’s canon. Earlier works relied upon highly theatrical techniques. The Loman Family Picnic concludes with three false endings, three fantasies nurtured by the protagonists. The Model Apartment (pr. 1988, pb. 1990) features two daughters, one killed during the Holocaust and one named after her dead sibling, who are played by the same actress. Drawing upon his training as a visual artist, Margulies uses collage to intertwine past and present in Sight Unseen.

Dinner with Friends shares much with Margulies’s earlier plays. The effects of shaken faith upon relationships, the flavor of loss, and the value of family run deep in Margulies’s work. However, Dinner with Friends speaks more directly to a generation that fears its moorings have come loose.

Sources for Further Study

Brustein, Robert. “Plays Fat and Thin.” Review of Dinner with Friends. The New Republic 222 (April 17, 2000): 64-66.

Margulies, Donald. “A Playwright’s Search for the Spiritual Father.” New York Times Current Events Edition, June 21, 1992, p. 25.

Marks, Peter. “A Menu Featuring Divorce and Fear.” New York Times, November 5, 1999, p. E4.

Pogrebin, Robin. “At the Junction of Life and Art.” New York Times, March 3, 2000, p. E1.