FREE ESSAY ON DINNER WITH FRIENDS ANALYSIS

DINNER WITH FRIENDS ANALYSIS

As a wonderfully enjoyable play, Dinner With Friends delivers to audiences a very
prevalent situation in relationships during this decade; The situation being, divorce.
Set in a area of New England, Dinner With Friends shows a difficult period in two fourty
year-old married couples, and long time friends lives. The character's ethnic background
is not brought into subject during the play, however, I assumed they were white of
European decent. However, the roles could be performed by any race of actors. This scene
contains one of the married couples, Tom and Beth. Tom is a lawyer and a fairly "to the
point" individual. He speaks what he feels and holds no emotions back. Beth, Tom's wife,
is a very "free soul." Beth has no set job. Her focus in life is set primarily on her art
and her family.
The scene in which I am analyzing takes place at the end of act one, scene two. In this
episode we have the character Tom, played by myself, confronting my wife Beth, played by
Krista Musser, about a situation that took place earlier in the evening. Beth, along with
her children, had dinner with the couples best friends, Gabe and Karen. At the conclusion
of dinner Beth informed both Gabe and Karen that her husband has cheated on her with
another woman. In fact, the reason Tom is not able to attend the dinner, according to
Beth, is because Tom has a plane flight that night and is to meet up with his stewardess
affairess Nancy. 
Tom arrives to his and Beth's house late that night; The kids are already asleep and Beth
is ready for bed as well. Tom, coming in with heavy clothes, due to the snow falling down
outside, enters the couples bedroom. After coming in Tom receives a cold welcome from
Beth along with a confrontation on how he should not come and go as he pleases in the
house once the two are officially divorced. Tom, however, is very interested about the
dinner with Gabe and Karen and proceeds to ask questions about the conversation that took
place over the process of the of the get together. Beth attempts to sway from the fact
that she told the other couple the truth about Tom but he can obviously tell that she has
done so and forces her to admit that she did. Tom is highly upset when he discovers that
Beth has spoken of the situation. Their plan for letting Gabe and Karen in on the
actuality was to set them down with the kids at home with a baby sitter and tell them
both together. Upon finding out, Tom becomes very interested on exactly what was said; So
begins the scene set for performing.
My emotions at the top of the scene, as Tom, is one of defence. Gabe and Karen are both
my friends to. In fact, I knew the other couple before I even knew Beth. Krista, as Beth,
knows that I am highly disturbed by the fact that I was not there with her when she
"spilled out" the news. My emotions come into play through the lines "That's not the
point! You've got the adventage now!" Krista says, "What?! I do not!" and I reply, "Of
course you do! You got to them first! They heard your side of the story first! Of course
they're gonna side with you, it's only natural!" The obvious jealousy that Gabe and Karen
could look down on me and think of me as the "bad guy" scares me. At which point I turn
angry and accuse Krista as plotting againest me.
Eventually the fight turns into slander of our two characters personalities. With heavy
retorts back and forth we each try to upset the other more and more. The fight esculates
to the conclusion where the battle suddenley takes an unexpected turn. Krista and I kiss
and the fight ends with a wild stare. Then as the scene ends when we franticly begin to
remove eachothers clothes. The hate that has come between us both when fueled gives both
our characters such passion. I believe my goal in the scene is to push the female
character. I still love her because she's my long time wife but I do not want to be with
her anymore. I am content that I have found my other lover, Nancy. The insinutated sex at
the end is merely an outcome from an emotionally charged situation.
Bibliography
Dinner With Friends, the play.