The table is set for an exploration of prejudice and bigotry in Lisa Loomer’s play “Two Things You Don’t Talk About at Dinner,” running through Feb. Think “Guess Who’s Coming to Seder?” with Sidney Poitier’s blackness replaced by religion and politics.
At Myriam’s Passover seder, in present day Los Angeles, the loaded subject of the Israeli-Palestinian impasse reveals fissures between friends.
Loomer gleefully ticks off a long list of tricky topics Miss Manners would advise first-time dinner guests to avoid: cross-cultural adoption, interfaith marriage, infertility and the Japanese dolphin slaughter, for starters.
The proudly multicultural group descends into stereotyping as the evening wears on. The evangelical Christian comes off as blissfully ignorant, while her son, the Buddhist, is blissfully stoned. The practicing Jew whose parents were killed in the Holocaust comes off as sanctimonious, while his pot-smoking, bulimic daughter is simply angry, and his perfectionist Japanese wife is a slave to Jewish ritual.
The hostess, Myriam, always includes her high-school beau, the “little Lebanese” Sam, at the holiday table. The potential split between this Arab and Jew will be the greatest.
The flawed characters struggle to see beyond their individual blinders, knowing that “one man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter,” but never get traction.
And still Loomer piles on the zingers — anti-Semitism on NPR! Viagra! 12-steppers! Jews eat Chinese on Sunday! — drawing attention to the overlap of personal and political without crafting an engrossing story.
The accretion of stereotypes becomes oppressive, amounting to an overheated dissertation rather than a night of theater.
“Two Things” is contrived, from the format that follows the ritual Seder book to the middling laugh lines, covered by sitcoms for years. While it does underscore the most basic assumptions that divide us and the inability of hard-liners on both sides to hear the opposing view, it doesn’t do so in an engrossing way. There is no transcendence, only point-counterpoint. The open set provides bathroom and bedroom spaces on the sides of the main dining area; director Wendy C. Goldberg has managed to inject movement into what is essentially a talky seated dinner.
How devoid of drama is it? The press kit is a study guide, covering everything from the Inquisition to Matthew 23 and the second coming of Christ.
The acting, however, is laudable. In particular Lenny Wolpe as Myriam’s well-meaning but limited husband, Jack, Karen Pittman as Myriam’s open-minded daughter, Nikki, and Sam Gregory as the over-indulging, secular humanist screenwriter Dan, rise above the material.
Loomer’s previous efforts, notably “Living Out,” used contemporary details and rapid-fire punch lines in the service of telling tales. Here the details mount, without amounting to more than a starting point for discussion.
Religion and politics are perfect subjects for theater, but good storytelling requires more depth of character and less forced structure.
Joanne Ostrow: 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com
“Two Things You Don’t Talk About at Dinner” ** (out of four stars)
Comedy. Presented by the Denver Center Theatre Company at the Space Theatre inside the Denver Performing Arts Complex, 14th and Curtis streets. Written by Lisa Loomer. Through Feb. 19. $52-$62. 303-893-4100 or
THIS WEEKEND’S THEATER OPENINGS
Denver Center Theatre Company’s “The Taming of the Shrew”
Through Feb. 26: Shakespeare’s battle of the sexes is here set in 1950s America. Ladies-man Petruchio takes on the challenge of transforming the wild and stubborn Kate into his loving bride, putting her through a set of physical and mental challenges that grow more and more absurd. Once the dust has settled, could what emerges be called a marriage of true minds?
Showtimes: Note new performance schedule: 6:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays; 7:30 p.m. Fridays; 1:30 and 7:30 p.m. Saturdays; 1:30 p.m. Sundays.
Stage Theatre, Denver Performing Arts Complex, 14th and Curtis streets, 303-893-4100 or
Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center’s “In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play)”
Through Feb. 19: Colorado premiere of Sarah Ruhl’s Tony- and Pulitzer-nominated new play, a smart comedy that explores and dispels old-fashioned notions of female sexuality, intimacy, and marriage. It concerns the early history of the vibrator, when doctors used it as a clinical device to bring women to orgasm as treatment for “hysteria.” Other themes include Victorian ignorance of female sexual desire, motherhood and breastfeeding, and jealousy. Contains adult situations.
Showtimes: 7:30 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays; 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays
30 W. Dale St., 719-634-5583 or
The Catamounts’ “The Three Faces of Doctor Crippen”
Through Feb. 18: Regional premiere of Emily Schwartz’s “pitch-black comedy” that resurrects what was once the most famous criminal investigation the world has ever known. Dr. H. H. Crippen, England’s most notoriously inept cellar murderer, was the first criminal ever to be apprehended with the aid of wireless technology. Presented in part as vaudeville, this factual (and fanciful) turn-of-the-century tragedy splits the homicidal homeopath in to three parts, public, private, and fantasy, as it teaches a marvelously macabre lesson in how not to rid yourself of a wife.
Showtimes: 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays
At Buntport Theater, 717 Lipan St., Denver, 720-468-0487 or
Southern Colorado Repertory Theatre’s “The Female Odd Couple”
Through Feb. 5: In 1985, Neil Simon revised his classic roommate comedy for a female cast. It is based on the same storyline and same lead characters, now called Florence Ungar and Olive Madison. It’s about a compulsive neatnik who arrives at the apartment of her best friend, who invites her to move in. Within a few days, this mismatched pair is on the verge of mutual murder. In this version, the poker game becomes Trivial Pursuit, and the Pigeon sisters become the Costazuela brothers, Manolo and Jesus.
Showtimes: 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday
Massari Performing Arts Center at Trinidad State Junior College, Trinidad, 719-846-4765 or
Heritage Square Music Hall’s “Phantom of the Music Hall”
Through April 19: You may know the classic France’s most famous deformed cellar-dweller. Now the irreverent Heritage Square Music Hall ensemble puts its comic spin on the tale, followed by another the Hall’s popular original comedy and music revue.
Showtimes: 7 p.m. selected Wednesdays and Thursdays; 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays (dinner 2 hours before)
18301 W. Colfax Ave., Golden, 303-279-7800 or
Heritage Square Music Hall’s “Who Done It at the High School Reunion”
Through March 25: Heritage Square Music Hall’s rings back its popular recent venture into Sunday-night murder mysteries with this original caper by Janice Estey. Sunday nights only in the upstairs bar.
Showtimes: 6 p.m.
18301 W. Colfax Ave., Golden, 303-279-7800 or
Openings compiled by John Moore, Special to The Denver Post
