'The Man Who Came to Dinner' comes to the MCC Black Box Theater
Amanda Thomas
Issue date: 11/3/06 Section: Entertainment
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The play opens on the parlor of an upscale Victorian-looking home during what seems to be World War II-era Ohio a little before Christmas. Characters from all entrances hurriedly come and go as the phone rings, door rings, and in come company all there to bask in the buzz around the house's esteemed guest, who can be heard displeasingly shouting orders from the other room. We soon find the source of his discontent as he wheels out on his wheel chair.
The guest, Sheridan Whiteside (played by none other than MCC's own Jay Geller) is an internationally acclaimed writer visiting the Stanley household, but ends up slipping on the icy doorstep and injuring his leg. Confined to the Stanley household, Whiteside proceeds about his business with his secretary Maggie Cutler (played by the affable Julie Billimack) and expects all his demands to be met unquestionably by the Stanleys. But when Maggie soon finds love in the approaching journalist and aspiring playwright Bert Jefferson (played by Jim Gesselle), Whiteside schemes to keep Maggie in order preserve his own little circle.
Like last years "Lend Me A Tenor," but with a larger supporting cast, "Man Who Came to Dinner" plays out like the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies from play's own time. Although it drags on to an approximate two-and-a-half hour running time, the play is carried out with great comical effect as the dominoes of disaster can be seen placed one in front of the other to result in what can be called hijinks at the Hepburn Estate. Director Tish Lyon certainly seems to have an eye and ear for comedy and doesn't miss a beat.
Everyone in the show is appropriately cast. It doesn't feel like watching a high school play where young actors and actresses perform out of their range or strengths. The younger characters are played by younger performers and the older characters are played by older performers. However, some supporting characters that only appear on stage for all of five minutes seem arbitrary and unnecessary.
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