A Gourmet Delight

It’s not often you come across a play as toothsome as Donald Margulie’s Pulitzer-Prize winning drama, “Dinner With Friends,” but director Karen Austin’s production, now playing at West Coast Ensemble, serves up as satisfyingly as a seven-course meal. An intelligent look at the highs and lows of a long-lasting marriage, the show might have wound up playing like an Oxygen Network weeper, but under Austin’s instinctive, detailed direction, a superb cast finds just the right blend of humor to make for a thoroughly engaging evening.
Über-foodies Gabe and Karen, (Peter Karlin and Kelly Lloyd) are having long-time friends Beth and Tom, (Sasha Carrera and Robert Gantzos) over for a gourmet meal, but in Tom’s absence, Beth tearfully confesses that all is not well in their marriage. Tom, an overgrown adolescent who married and had kids simply because it “seemed like the thing to do,” has strayed into the arms of a more exciting lover.
The fact that Lloyd can command the stage with a single silent glance is tribute to the subtle firepower she brings to her part, and Karlin’s nebbishy Gabe is no slouch, either. Some of his deadpan takes provide the show’s biggest laughs. Gantzos manages to find the sympathy in the boyish, philandering husband, and Carrera’s Beth has some secrets up her sleeve as well. 
Ultimately, the business of the piece is for Gabe and Karen to examine their own marriage through the dark glass of their friends’ actions. Doing so in such a gently thoughtful, realistic manner is what makes the show such an enjoyable repast.
“Dinner With Friends” performs at West Coast Ensemble, 804 N. El Centro in Hollywood, 90038.  For information, call 323-913-0577.