Adelaide Repertory Theatre. 18 Apr 2013
The image of Helen Geoffreys in a stoplight red sheath dress set against a matching slash of backdrop light strikes straight into the memory and one knows that it will never leave.
It's a genius stroke of design from director Dave Simms which instantly marks Dinner as a standout production.
Even before Geoffreys hits the stage, audience members are admiring the set - six executive chairs around a vast, skirted dinner table, two candelabra stands flanking the stage, and a harsh star-drape of naked light bulbs aloft. Its simple symbolism sits beautifully with the evolving play - a contemporary satire on affluence, class, cuisine and pretentiousness.
From English playwright, Moira Buffini, come streams of vicious invective and the picture of a marriage which is hurtling towards crisis.
Hostess Paige, bored, bitter and living in Home Counties luxury, has designed a most unusual, original and rather erudite culinary menu for a dinner in honour of the new bestseller book written by her husband, Lars. It's called Beyond Belief and is a tome of "me" philosophy.
Among the guests, Hal is an old friend, a dreary microbiologist who insists on demeaning his beautiful his second wife, journalist Sian, with the label of "news babe". The marriage looks fraught.
As for the other couple, only the loudly fey vegetarian artist, Wynne turns up. She has just broken up with her politician partner. By chance, his empty chair is filled by an unexpected guest, a questionable commoner who arrives out of the fog asking to use the phone.
Last but not least is The Waiter. Paige has found him on the Internet and, quietly complicit, he takes care of all her needs.
Oddly, Sims has cast Geoff Dawes in this role and while he has an engaging stage presence, he is a far cry from the lean, lurking and waspish impression given on the poster.
But the play belongs to Paige, the highly educated, highly articulate hostess who is oozing venom and imploding with spite. Geoffreys’ well-measured delivery, not to mention that fine voice and expert intonation, reigns over the dinner table, the script and the plays considerable dramatic tension. She's a superb actress and she makes a meal of Dinner.
Peter Davies complements well as the ghastly egocentric husband who is rekindling his student crush on the other guest, gushy, ga-ga Wynne, whose claim to fame was to exhibit a painting of her husband's genitals. Nicole Rutty plays her with panache.
Alan Fitzpatrick challenges the posh party mood with his perky working class characterisation of the interloper, van driver Mike. When it comes to truth, he may be the liar to believe.
The playwright, however, does not allow one to be sure. She is playing nicely-devised games with characters and clichés of our times.
The respectable scientist, played by Steve Marvanek, is as lowly as the microbes he studies, while the makeup-caked newsreader, at first the shallowest character, rises to be the solitary admirable guest at the table - so doing with a creditable performance by Olivia Eblen.
Dinner is a long play but rich in witty, bitchy tirades often in the ilk Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf.
It is sustained by the unexpected and sometimes, the plain shocking with its menu of Primordial soup, Apocalypse Lobster and Frozen waste.
Some would liken it to "revenge served cold". Others may describe it as “the dinner from hell". One thing no one is describing is the ending.
Samela Harris
When: 18 to 27 Apr
Where: Arts Theatre
Bookings: 8212 5777
