PLAYS

Synopses of representative dramatic works.

FRIENDS FOR DINNER:

Two acts; approximately 2.25 hours running time; unit set. Friends For Dinner is a Comedy of Manners in two acts that explores modern America’s obsession with exclusivity, trendiness, materialism, and, ultimately, power.

This dynamic is examined through the permutating relationships among the play’s five characters: David, Siegfried, Bernadette, Larry, and Michigan. As is prevalent in Comedies of Manner from Shakespeare to Shaw and Wilde, the vehicle for uncovering the characters’ hidden shallowness and hypocrisy and, ultimately, the play’s humor, is its language, word-play and wit, which is slightly heightened, brittle and biting. Structurally, the play’s two acts unfold during the course of only one scene. Thus, this unity compresses the action and heightens the tension and conflicts in the play, while also highlighting its thematic aspects.

The plot of Friends for Dinner unfolds as follows: The protagonist, David Cooper decides to open a restaurant—in his apartment. The restaurant, called Friends For Dinner, is to be a unique concept in the restaurant industry, a micro-restaurant. David, as host, will entertain guests on a one-to-one basis as if they were friends coming to dinner. At the center of David’s concept is the idea that hospitality—even if paid for—should be warm, generous, and civil in the purest sense of the word. Enlisted as unpaid and (at first) unknowing help for the evening is Siegfried Landesson, a restaurant industry professional, David’s oldest and dearest friend who has serious doubts about David’s idea.

The first of David’s guests to arrive is Bernadette Dearborne. A staffer at the women’s magazine Le Soiree, Bernadette is a pampered child of wealth and has no real responsibilities or ambitions—especially at the magazine. While she waits for the arrival of her date, Larry Banetti (a Wall Street businessman), who has set up the evening with David, Bernadette warms to David’s concept. However, as the three continue to wait for Larry’s arrival, their party is crashed by Michigan Custiss (a Yuppie Lawyer)—who believes Bernadette has stood him up for a date that same evening.

Instead of ejecting Michigan, David, true to his idea of pure Hospitality, invites Michigan to stay to meet Laurence. Meanwhile, egged on by Michigan’s taunts about her shallowness, Bernadette, decides to become David’s champion and write an article about his idea for Le Soiree. Under her influence David re-conceptualizes the future of his restaurant as an exclusively expensive hangout for the ultra-powerful and cool.

The second act begins with Larry’s arrival. Michigan, who has not been aware of Larry’s surname and has agreed to meet Larry under strictly civil terms, flies into a rage upon realizing that it was he himself who introduced Larry to Bernadette at a society dinner. He accuses Larry of ungentlemanly behavior and as revenge finds a unique and spiteful way to spoil David’s first course cuisine before storming out.

However, as the evening progresses, despite Michigan’s rude behavior and Siegfried’s misgivings and warnings, David’s first outing as proprietor of Friends For Dinner seems to be a success. But soon--as errors are made in service and other anti-social behavior is displayed, intentions begin to diverge radically; staff and guests become testy and defensive. David turns on Siegfried – eventually asking him to leave the dinner party. Finally, as David’s idea is in danger of being stolen--his brainchild, already compromised by Bernadette’s influence, Bernadette and Larry turn on David, who is forced to leave his own apartment, his idea further corrupted and ultimately destroyed.

Balancing the negativity of these late developments is Siegfried’s sense of compassion and the purity of his friendship for David, as David turns to Siegfried once again for help during the play’s ending. At this point, the audience sees the action involving the two pairs of characters in a split focus, and, as Siegfried reconciles with David, inviting him into his home, the action finishes with Larry and Bernadette, still in David’s apartment, as Larry exultantly celebrates his sexual power over Bernadette.

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DROIT DU SEIGNEUR

One-act; approximately 30-35 minutes; unit set. Comedy/Drama. Explores themes of power, manipulation, conspicuous-consumption. The action takes place in a restaurant, as Larry Banetti and Curtis Custis, two Wall Street businessman, enter a restaurant to cap off a night of partying. The two men have been out celebrating “bonus day,” the day when they receive their end of year bonuses. Larry, thirty-ish and brash, is the driving force behind this side trip to the restaurant, while Curt, a married man currently building a house in Westchester County, accompanies him reluctantly. Larry orders steak dinner for the two and decides to buy a bottle of wine to accompany the meal.

As the play progresses during the meal, we learn that the two men (Larry from working class Brooklyn-Italian roots and Curt from a wealthy WASP background) have diametrically opposed views of the world and what it means to have money and power. Their worldviews are dramatically represented when the bill for dinner arrives at the table and Larry seemingly tricks Curt into paying for half of the meal. This is when Curt realizes that Larry has ordered a $10,000 bottle of wine. When Curt protests that he and his wife are building a house and he needs to save his money, Larry belittles him and Curt agrees to leave only the tip for the waiters. When Larry insists that Curt leave twenty percent, roughly $2,000, Curt objects saying that he doesn’t carry that kind of cash around. Larry lends Curt the money, but the situation is complicated when the waiter, Nicholas, an older Italian man, refuses to accept the tip. Larry, frustrated and insulted that the older man will not accept his money, leaves the restaurant with the $2,000 lying on the floor, where he threw it in a fit of anger.

Curt follows Larry and the money is picked up by Roberto, a younger waiter. Nicholas, still disgusted with the businessmen, says that Roberto can have the money if he wants it. As the play ends, Roberto pockets the $2,000 dollars and decides to taste some of the Chateau Margaux 1900 that the men have left on the table. The final image is of Roberto greedily drinking the wine from the carafe as it spills out over his neck, chest and shoulders.

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MIDSUMMER (see reviews below)

Two Acts; approximately 2 hours running time; flexible set; eight characters. Comedy/Drama. Explores themes of loss, redemption and change. Midsummer is set in northern England in the post-war years of the early 1950s. Peter Loughlan, a bricklayer, attempts to prevent his daughter Nora from marrying an American serviceman of Italian-American descent. This domestic situation is complicated by the fact that Nora is Peter and Gertrude's only surviving child, their son Brian having been killed in battle in World War 2. This conflict is even further complicated by Peter's belief in Celtic Spirits--and two such spirits, Obrin and Robin, who at key moments speak in verse, do indeed inhabit the same play in an important sub-plot. In the sub-plot Obrin, an "earth-spirit" suffers from a sickness, brought on by the upheaval of the war. Obrin can be healed--but only at the loss of a life ("a changeling") who willingly sacrifices his life for Obrin's. Also figuring in the the two sub-plots is Geordie Fraser, a learning-disabled young man who lives upstairs from the Loughlans with his alcoholic mother. Peter acts as a surrogate father to Geordie and puts "notions in his head" that Geordie is a Celtic prince. Eventually, at a party celebrating the dead Brian's birthday, the audience learns that Peter is in part responsible for Brian's death, Peter and Geordie become drunk. and Peter suggests that Nora marry Geordie (who is deeply in love with her). Nora rejects Geordie, who then runs to the river, where earlier he has been teaching younger children to swim. When Obrin and Robin reveal themselves to Geordie, he declares his Celtic heritage, and leaps into the river, thus reclaiming Obrin's immortal life and transforming into one of the Fairies himself. In the final scene, as the newly married Nora is about to leave for America, she reconciles with Peter. Finally, the Fairies return and bless the family and marriage with a Fairy song and dance.

Reviews of Midsummer

…Where can theatre-goers hungry for troubled, three-dimensional characters with weighty histories, poetic writing that traffics in dreams, metaphors and memories, gentle humor, coruscating truths, and emotionally fulfilling climaxes, go? No further than down to the Nat Horne Theatre, where Paul Parente’s exceptionally fine new play, Midsummer, weaves a tale of loss gradually unburdened by acceptance…Although the parallels to A Midsummer Night’s Dream deserve scholarly attention, only a small familiarity with Shakespeare’s comedy is needed to appreciate Parente’s concept…the final scene, with its deaths and renewals, its regrets and redemptions, its aching sweetness in the most offhand remarks, ties the play together with the satisfying wholeness of a work of great art, and heart.—David Lefkowitz—Theatre Week and Showbusiness.

On the surface, Paul Parente’s new play Midsummer would appear to be a straightforward domestic drama, and in many respects it is just that. But, as the title suggests, there is more than a passing nod to Shakespeare's [A Midsummer Night’s]Dream. That conceit, along with references to the Celtic mystique ad Druid rituals, gives a fairly standard situation a haunting, even mythic quality… –Brian Bradley—Backstage

Paul Parente’s first full-length play is a very ambitious endeavor. Midsummer is a cross between the blarney of Sean O’Casey and the whimsy of Sir James M. Barrie. It is touched by a Celtic twilight and spins a magical web…not only does Midsummer have the ring of authenticity in its handling of English, Irish and Scottish milieu, Parente has also interwoven themes of honor, truth and the spirit into his complex play. --Victor Gluck—The New York Native

The tale resonates with melancholia and magic…there is almost too much packed into Paul Parente’s script. He is, after all, tackling love and war in two acts. But it is so tightly written, and the characters have so much integrity as a family who have suffered a loss, that the basic theme of accepting change with love and self-respect, shines through. One cares what happens to these people…Peter is a gruff darling…His is a layered character…his grief over his lost son is palpably heart-breaking, and his clinging adoration of his daughter equally so. Midsummer is Mr. Parente’s first full-length play. He is a writer with a finely tuned ear and an imaginative voice. More important, he has something important to say. -- Ken Oser—New York Law Journal

The Dialogue between the young lovers is sexy and tender, touched lightly with word-plays and affectionate teasing. When the parents conflict, the stage bristles with his personal indignation and her lifetime of frustration and passion dealing with a charming brick-carrier forever raging at not being acknowledged a Celtic prince. “Midsummer” bravely tackles big problems: an only daughter’s emigration and the death of a beloved soldier son. --Glenda Frank – The Westsider

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TWO AND TWENTY

One-act. No set or props required. Contemporary costumes. Approx. 35 minutes. Comedy/Drama. Explores themes of Coming-of-age, anger and romantic heart break. AVAILABLE THROUGH SAMUEL FRENCH: https://www.concordtheatricals.com/p/4204/two-and-twenty

A young writer, Joe, fantasizes about and debates with his college sweetheart, Susan, about their relationship and why it ended. Actors use two stools only to conjure the several scenes and settings of the play. The audience learns about their initial meeting, the development of their relationship and eventual breakup. But though Joe can be a persuasive and charming narrator of his own story--especially as he often uses tags from famous Romantic poems to underscore his points (see "When I was one and twenty" by A.E. Housman)--is he reliable? Eventually, he confesses his own faults to himself and the audience in a final, lyrical monologue, that underscores his own growth and gets him beyond the seminal age of twenty-two.