Come for ‘Dinner,’ stay for laughs
Just imagine: A celebrity guest with a nasty reputation agrees
to bestow unimagined prestige upon a household by agreeing to
attend a dinner party, but slips on an icy step and incapacitates
himself. Marooned in the home, he makes himself comfortable through
threats of a lawsuit and a series of outrageous demands.
Come for ‘Dinner,’ stay for laughs
Just imagine: A celebrity guest with a nasty reputation agrees to bestow unimagined prestige upon a household by agreeing to attend a dinner party, but slips on an icy step and incapacitates himself. Marooned in the home, he makes himself comfortable through threats of a lawsuit and a series of outrageous demands.
Far from a social and possibly financial tragedy, that’s the set-up for a farce that’s become a theater classic.
“The Man Who Came to Dinner,” by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, debuted nearly 70 years ago at the Music Box Theater in New York and ran for more than 700 performances on Broadway.
It’s now enjoying a run as San Benito Stage Company’s spring dinner theater production, with performances tonight, Saturday, March 1, and March 7 and 8 at Ridgemark.
The production features a local cast, directed by company veteran Christian Barrera and produced by Toni Smith. Both have been involved in the stage company since its inception in 1999.
Without giving away too much, the play centers around Sheridan Whiteside, a lecturer and critic who interprets his life’s work as offering blunt criticism of everything and everyone falling under his jaded gaze. As his secretary, Maggie, put it late in the play, “He would have his mother burned at a stake if that was the only way he could light his cigarette!”
As improbable as it may seem, Whiteside was based upon real-life critic and author Alexander Woolcott after Hart endured one of the worst evenings of his life at a dinner party at Woolcott’s home.
Tickets must be purchased in advance, and are available at Post Net in the Nob Hill Shopping Center or at the San Benito Stage Company Web site, www.sanbenitostage.org.
