After-dinner feast with friends

A dinner with friends often involves a homemade meal, a bottle of wine or two and a hearty round of chuckles before lengthy bouts of chit-chat. If you toss in a moment of man-meets-woman in the name of connivance, man-rids-woman for another in the name of love, and man-and-woman-mate in the name of raging lust, then you have "Dinner with Friends," a play written by Donald Margulies and directed by IU theater professor Bruce Burgun, showing at the John Waldron Arts Center Friday and Saturday.\n"Dinner With Friends," a 2000 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, offered community members a five-act glimpse into the complexities of sustaining a loving relationship despite the ever-increasing temptations of the modern world. The play portrays the evolution of two married couples, in which each couplet attempts to navigate their ever-changing feelings about the needs and bounds of each relationship.\nGabe, played by Bloomington Playwrights Project Artistic Director Richard Perez, and his wife Karen, played by Bloomington High School North drama teacher Francesca Sobrer, emotionally portray the ups, downs and intermingles of a loving relationship threatened by the infidelity and eventual break up of their best friends. \nBeth, played by Danielle Bruce, and her husband Tom, played by Lee Parker, provide a sneak peek into married life within a once loving but now divided house.\nMargulies' playwriting challenged the actors to portray waves of passionate lust and enduring love. His script also challenged the audience to reaffirm or deny their preconceived notions of what a truly "happy" relationship means for each person.\nSobrer was central to the show; she masterfully committed her character to outlining and enforcing the bounds of appropriate communication and reaffirmed commitment to maintaining a loving relationship. \nKaren is presented as any community member's neighbor trying to balance a loving married life during the split of life long friends. \nGabe, as the audience witnessed, realized his need to discover new friends aligned with his current circumstances -- his role as husband, father and lover. His character's dependence on the love and commitment of his wife is both genuine and wise, and Perez portrayed well the everyman confronted with a best friend enduring a mid-life crisis.\nBeth and Tom seemed to demonstrate an example of a loveless marriage, and their love-at-first-sight attitude is quickly replaced with contempt and a hint of regret.\nThe true "bravo" of the show is for Burgun, whose orchestration of the action brought "Dinner With Friends" to life for the Bloomington community. His direction was felt in the laughter and tension tug-of-war the characters put forth on stage, and his commitment to Margulies' emotional roller coaster of dialogue provided the audience with a spectacle of philosophical proportion.\n"Dinner With Friends" is a worthwhile view for every community member, regardless of age or current relationship. The play reminded this reviewer of the important role of communication with those a person loves and of the role of commitment when a person dedicates the entirety of his or her life to another human being.