By A.R. Gurney. The Theatre on Chester, Epping, NSW. Director: Tracey Okeby Lucan. 24 July – 15 August, 2026
Reviewed : 24 July, 2026 *
American playwright A.R. Gurney was born in 1930. He died in 2017. His obituary in The New York Times described him as “a prolific playwright who dissected the fading folkways of the Northeast’s traditional white Anglo-Saxon Protestant Society”. The Dining Room, first produced in 1981, is a perfect example of his keen observation and wry satire of the wealthy American society in which he grew up and worked.
The dining room in Gurney’s play is a symbol of stability and permanence, a family hub. From 1925 to 1980, it traces changes in society – traditions, manners, attitudes, prejudices – over some of the most eventful years of the 20th century.
That Gurney managed to convey so many variations in customs and attitudes in a single play is a credit to his clever writing – and his faith in the ability of six actors to play 57 characters in a carefully conceived series of non-linear intertwining scenes that cover such issues as etiquette, respect, infidelity, divorce and ageing.
Tracey Okeby Lucan’s dining room is elegant but stark. The early 20th century table and six chairs upholstered in red the only furniture, china plates on a high plate rail the only decoration. The only colours are in the seats of the chairs and the stained glass above two French doors.
Through archways from the kitchen and a hall, Okeby Lucan brings the six actors that perform 18 scenes that might have taken place over half a century in that dining room. They play parents, grandparents, children, grandchildren, friends, lovers, domestic servants, a real estate agent, an architect. They each carry nine or ten different characters in their heads, sometimes moving from one to another in a matter of seconds.
It would be impossible to cover every character depicted, as Julie Moore, Catherine Potter and Cate Kerrigan bring a variety of women and girls to life, and Jake Tyzack, Brett Joachim and Clive Hobson depict a succession of boys and men.
Under Okeby Lucan’s careful direction they move smoothly from scene to scene, and character to character, sometimes adult to child in a matter of seconds. The script involves some very intense characterisation – and Okeby Lucan ensures each actor has some of those special moments such as …
A woman intent on becoming independent, even if it means typing her thesis on the dining room table in defiance of her husband. A teenage girl sitting boldly on that table as she plies her best friend with gin and vodka while they wait for “the boys’ to arrive! A wife flirting with a cabinet maker as they lie under the table checking out where some repairs are needed.
An ageing father talking about his funeral arrangements to his increasingly reluctant son. A father totally denying his daughter’s plea to come back home with her three children after a messy marriage break up. A grandson’s trepidatious approach to his self-made grandfather about funding his expensive private school fees. A pushy architect trying to convince a reluctant psychiatrist to convert the dining room into a reception and consulting room.
Other scenes involve all six actors. In one four become very young children tucking into birthday cake and ice cream unaware of the doomed romance between two of their parents. In another they portray the different attitudes of family members to their poor mother’s deteriorating dementia.
The Dining Room records A.R. Gurney’s memories of over a half a century of life in his America. Okeby Lucan and her cast bring those memories to life 45 years after they were written and 35 after the play was first produced by the Theatre on Chester.
It is part of the company’s 70th birthday celebrations – a season of “memories” where they perform three plays selected from the many produced over those 70 years. The Dining Room was one of their plays from 1991, directed by the legendary Kathleen Warren. In November they will continue their celebration with the much-loved Arsenic and Old Lace.
First published in Stage Whispers magazine.
* Opening Night