The Dining Room. (Acting Edition for Theater Productions) - Softcover

A. R. Gurney

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0822203103 ISBN 13: 9780822203100

Publisher: Dramatist's Play Service, 1998

Synopsis

"The Dining Room," a play by the American playwright A. R. Gurney, Jr., is a comedy of manners, set in a single dining room where 18 scenes from different households overlap and intertwine. Each story is focused on a different family (during different time periods), each of which has in its possession the same dining room furniture set, manufactured in 1898. The stories are about White-Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) families. Some scenes are about the furniture itself and the emotional attachment to it, while other scenes simply flesh out the culture of the WASPs. Overall, it tells the story of the dying and relatively short-lived culture of upper-middle class Americans, and the transition into a much more efficient society with less emphasis on tradition and more emphasis on progress. Some characters are made fun of, as is the culture itself, but there is also a genuine longing for the sense of stability, comfort and togetherness that the culture provides.

Edition details

• Publisher: Dramatist's Play Service
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0822203103
• ISBN 13: 9780822203100
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 81