- Dinner with Friends
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Dinner with Friends is a 2000 play written by Donald Margulies. It premiered at the 1998 Humana Festival of New American Plays and opened Off-Broadway in New York on November 4, 1999.[1]
Contents
Plot summary
Gabe and Karen, a happily married middle-aged couple, have been friends with Tom and Beth, another married couple, for many years. In fact, it was Gabe and Karen who fixed up their friends in the first place. While having dinner at Gabe and Karen's home one night, Beth tearfully reveals that she is getting a divorce from Tom, who has been unfaithful.
Tom, who had been away on business, finds out that Beth has told their friends about the looming divorce, and hastens to Gabe and Karen's home. Tom and Beth had planned to tell their friends about their breakup together, but Tom now believes that Beth has unfairly presented herself as the wronged party, and feels he must present his own side of the story.
Over the course of the play, we see both couples at different ages and stages of their lives, and we witness the effects of Tom and Beth's breakup on Gabe and Karen, who first feel compelled to choose sides, and then begin to question the strength of their own seemingly tranquil marriage. They also begin to see the real meaning behind their friendships with Tom and Beth.
Original Off-Broadway cast
- Gabe: Matthew Arkin
- Karen: Lisa Emery
- Beth: Julie White
- Tom: Kevin Kilner
- Sammy: Angus T. Jones
Awards and nominations
Aside from winning the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the play also received the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway Play, the Dramatists Guild/Hull-Warriner Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award, the American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award, and a Drama Desk Award nomination.
Film adaptation
The play was adapted into a 2001 TV movie starring Dennis Quaid as Gabe, Andie MacDowell as Karen, Greg Kinnear as Tom, and Toni Collette as Beth. It was nominated for two Emmys, including Outstanding Made for Television Movie.[2]
References
External links
- Critic's Notebook; A Validation of Off Broadway: Review at NY Times
Pulitzer Prize for Drama (1976–2000) - A Chorus Line (1976)
- The Shadow Box (1977)
- The Gin Game (1978)
- Buried Child (1979)
- Talley's Folly (1980)
- Crimes of the Heart (1981)
- A Soldier's Play (1982)
- 'night, Mother (1983)
- Glengarry Glen Ross (1984)
- Sunday in the Park with George (1985)
- Fences (1987)
- Driving Miss Daisy (1988)
- The Heidi Chronicles (1989)
- The Piano Lesson (1990)
- Lost in Yonkers (1991)
- The Kentucky Cycle (1992)
- Angels in America: Millennium Approaches (1993)
- Three Tall Women (1994)
- The Young Man From Atlanta (1995)
- Rent (1996)
- How I Learned to Drive (1998)
- Wit (1999)
- Dinner with Friends (2000)
- Complete list
- (1918–1925)
- (1926–1950)
- (1951–1975)
- (1976–2000)
- (2001–2025)
Categories:- 1998 plays
- Plays by Donald Margulies
- Pulitzer Prize for Drama
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