Circle Players
416 Victoria Avenue
Piscataway, NJ 08854
Proudly Presents
THE COCKTAIL HOUR
by A.R. Gurney
April 21 through May 7, 2006
Friday and Saturday at 8:00 p.m.
April 30 and May 7 at 3:00 p.m.
A playwright returns to the home of his wealthy, very proper parents to get their permission to produce a play he has written about them. The confrontation takes place during the ritual of the cocktail hour, and, as the martinis flow, so do the recriminations and revelations. The parents are disturbed and offended by the way they are portrayed; the sister objects to the minor role assigned to her character. THE COCKTAIL HOUR is a funny and poignant drama.
Director: John Correll/Winfield
Producer: David Benson/New Brunswick
Cast: Stan Kaplan/Westfield, Jean Kuras/Glen Ridge, David Neal/Fanwood, Catherine Rowe/Somerset
Opening night, please join us for a wine and cheese reception after the performance. For reservations, phone 732-968-7555 or visit our website: www.circleplayers.com
posted by Catherine Rowe @ 10:53 AM
1 Comments:
THEATER REVIEW
Gurney's piercing comedy resonates with everyone
Home News Tribune Online 05/4/06, by BILL ZAPCIC, STAFF WRITER
People who have issues with their parents — the parents themselves, the parents' values, the parents' lifestyles — should think twice about seeing Circle Players' production of "The Cocktail Hour." Then they should see it.
A.R. Gurney's piercing comedy from the mid-1970s about a son's revealing play, and about how his plans to have it produced on Broadway turn his family upside down, touches home especially for Baby Boomers who spent their formative years rejecting their parents' capitalism. But it can resonate for anyone who dared to think for himself or herself and chose a path not directly in the parents' footsteps.
John (David C. Neal) is the now-grown middle child of three. He joins his father, Bradley (Stan Kaplan), in a sharp discussion during the family's nightly cocktail hour. It becomes clear quickly that the cocktail hour is the integral element in this family's life, that hard liquor softens the blow of the rat race.
This is an old-money family, with servants and high-end booze and antimacassars and navy blazers and silk repp ties. It's a family that irritates John, has him in psychotherapy, has him writing and producing plays as an expensive hobby and as a purgative.
His play, itself called "The Cocktail Hour," apparently lays bare what he sees as the shallowness and ridiculousness of his family, which also includes his mother, Ann (Jean Kuras), his older sister, Nina (Catherine Rowe), and his younger brother, Jigger (mentioned but never seen).
Ann hasn't done a whole lot since the Great Depression some 40 years earlier, and Nina stayed close to the family manse to serve as dutiful wife and daughter, even though she has unfulfilled dreams of her own.
What passes for a plot in this character study involves a few Pandora's boxes and a few children finally following through on their willful passions.
This is a wonderful, many-layered play. It skewers WASPs, country clubs, remnants of the hippie counterculture, family businesses, lockstep child-rearing, and even the mechanics and subtleties of writing and producing plays — sort of like a snake eating its own tail.
Seen today from a three-decade perspective in which relationships between parents and children have become far warmer and moved them closer, "The Cocktail Hour" lightly but firmly incinerates the notion of children being seen but not heard.
Performances are uniformly stellar. Neal, Kaplan, Kuras and Rowe deliver emotional range and depth through rich, believable characterizations. Director John Correll has them use every square inch of the stage, and the actors dominate it with great energy.
They make this sensitive material appropriately funny, for rebel children and for everyone.
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