Theater and sociology converge at Mira Costa High School
A.R. Gurney is perhaps best known for “Love Letters,” a two-person play that accrued lots of frequent flyer miles after its debut in 1990. Some years earlier, in 1982, “The Dining Room” garnered praise and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. One can say many things about it, beginning with: It’s not your typical play.
“The Dining Room” – which the Mira Costa Drama Department is presenting this weekend and next – is being billed as a portrait of the WASP, or white Anglo-Saxon Protestant, and specifically those members of the upper-middle-class who traditionally gathered , en famille, and together enjoyed breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Often, various degrees of formal etiquette were observed, but mostly it was time spent as a family unit.
Gurney’s play is something of a social history of this once-prevalent aspect of American life, at least as it was most prominently in the northeastern United States, in this case between 1940 and 1980. These slice of life views course through 18 vignettes and 57 characters, and the pay-off is in the impression we’re left with of just what it is that has faded away as large families have splintered and economic survival has necessitated duel incomes and extended or erratic hours.
So, the dining room is really the main character?
“Very much so,” says Luke Yankee, who is directing the new production.
The ringmaster
Long Beach Civic Light Opera folded somewhere in the 1990s, but theatergoers may still recall catching a musical or two in the rather cavernous Terrace Theater. And if they can dig out an old program or two they may even recollect that Luke Yankee served time there as the company’s artistic director. Clearly, for one who seems so youthful, he has quite a history in theater – and Long Beach was hardly the beginning.
We spoke in person a few days ago during a break in rehearsals.
Did you choose “The Dining Room” for these students at Mira Costa High School?
“I did, yes,” Yankee replies. “I directed this play back in Connecticut in 1989, before most of these people were born; and I’m a personal friend of A.R. Gurney. This has been one of my favorite plays for a long time, and Carol Mathews, the drama instructor here, has become a dear friend.
“I assisted on ‘Crazy for You’ two years ago, and then last fall I directed ‘The Apple Tree,’ so this is my third time working with the students at Mira Costa.
“I was looking for a play that could give them a lot of opportunities,” Yankee says, “because the way this play was done originally was with an ensemble of six actors playing about 60 roles. Here we have 22 actors, and they all play three or four roles. To increase the challenge for them I double-cast it… It’s the same actors but two different casts. On one night somebody will be playing the father and the next night they’ll be playing a six-year-old – and it’s all done without any changes in costume or makeup. It’s all dependent upon their acting.
“It’s very much an ensemble piece,” Yankee continues. “It’s really a comment on WASP culture and society… the history of the dining room and what takes place in the dining room, whether it’s funerals or birthday celebrations or breakups, over the course of 50 or 60 years.”
He then praises the drama students he’s working with.
“They’re very dedicated. I’ve worked mostly in professional theater, but I always go back to working with students whenever I can because not only does it remind me of my roots and my beginnings, [but] the enthusiasm and the eagerness that they have really makes me fall in love with the theater all over again, and I remember why I wanted to do this in the first place.”
Schizophrenia?
Well, that’s the director’s perspective, but what about the student actors themselves? How do they feel about all this? I spoke with six members of the cast, four young ladies and two young gentlemen, preferring naturally to spend as much time as possible with each young woman and as little time as possible with the guys. Aw, I’m just kidding! But unfortunately all of the conversations were brief – unfortunately, I say, because each person I spoke with was articulate and clearly had a great deal more to say. Well, there’s always the next play…
Laurel Andersen is a senior and has studied drama for all four years in high school. She’s in five scenes.
“With every character you play you could be any age,” she says. “There are people in the show who are playing five-year-olds and 60-year-olds. The real challenge for me was deciding how to embody a person whose age is so beyond mine in either direction.”
Andersen plans to pursue acting as a career, and my impression is that she’ll audition for the school’s spring musical.
“It’s rare that we do a straight play here at Costa,” she says, “and it’s really nice to do that sort of dramatic experience. I think everyone in the cast is honored and happy to do straight acting, because we’re so used to musicals.”
Oriana Inferrera is playing four parts.
“Some of them were more challenging than others,” she says; “some of them happened to just click right away. I’m playing a woman in her 80s with Alzheimer’s, and obviously that’s something I’ve never experienced, and so it’s the kind of challenge that you hope for as an actress. You put yourself in a totally different situation.”
A challenge that you hope for as an actress – but not in real life. Yes?
“Yeah,” she replies. “Actually, Alzheimer’s and memory loss is one of my biggest fears.”
Especially before an important exam.
Inferrera points out that she’s been involved in theater for a long time, and notes that musicals are so much different because “you have to sing, you have to act, and you have to dance. With this it’s been a complete focus on acting and on the process of creating a character. As a student of acting it’s been wonderful to have an opportunity to just focus on that element of theater.”
Jason Boxer has five parts (in the play, that is; he has more parts in real life).
One of the challenges for him is the challenge of doing nothing. In one role, “I’m doing a lot of listening; I barely have any lines in the whole scene and [I’m] talking to my father about his funeral.” The father goes on and on, Boxer says, “and then I respond with something like, Yes, pop. And I have that several times.
“Just to even be present in that scene is really challenging because you can’t do it through the lines. It’s all got to be physical and it’s all got to be just paying very close attention to what he’s saying, and [then] my reactions to that. This is my first time being in a straight play.” Boxer adds that what he’s been more involved with at the school is improv and the “wacky, funny stuff that we do with that.” Very different from what Luke Yankee has him doing, that’s for sure.
At the end of our conversation he makes a jarring confession: “I’m actually on the high school newspaper here, so being on this side of the interview is a new thing for me as well.”
Journalism, as everyone knows, is where the money is. And, as you might guess, it’s always the arts editor at the local paper who ends up with all the girls.
Now, where were we?
Am I old, or am I young?
Kristin O’Brien has four roles – or table settings – in “The Dining Room.”
The challenge for her, she says, is to effortlessly shift from one character to another “halfway through the play, and to remember what you’re supposed to be feeling and how you’re supposed to be reacting to what’s going on.”
Even so, O’Brien says, “Acting in general is such a nice release. You can put down everything that’s going on, get rid of all of the worries and thoughts in your mind, and just take on a whole new persona. Even if things are going well for you, you need to put that out there and use your energy for a purpose that’s fun for you and for others to watch. Things just start to click when you’re acting; it’s a great release of creativity.”
Sam Henneberry, who was wearing eye-catching violet socks with candy corn designs, covers five roles.
In describing the tenor of the parts he plays, Henneberry reminds us that “The Dining Room” is a reflection on WASP culture. “They repress a lot of their emotions,” he says, “and then some of the roles do the exact opposite and it’s hard to make that transition in ways where you cannot just play opposite characters, but [are compelled to play] different characters.”
And how do you prepare yourself for shifting from one role to another?
“I like to explore what the character has been doing,” Henneberry replies; “not just in that scene and how they’re reacting to the scene, but pretty much everything within their most recent life. I really like writing, and I’ve made elaborate back stories to all my characters.”
The final student actor I’m speaking with today is Kellianne Safarik.
I guess we can say that we’ve saved the best for last, right?
She laughs, and says “Thank you.”
A multi-part role is new for her, too. “I have five completely different characters, and making the shift from character to character is a real challenge. Between each part you’re playing, when you’re backstage, you really have to ground yourself and put yourself back in a blank place where you can create a whole new personality when you go onstage.”
Do you also come up with a little back story as to what the character is in a larger context?
“Yeah,” Safarik replies. “It’s really fun to do those, especially since there’s two of us playing each character.” As Luke Yankee has mentioned, the roles are double-cast. “Each of us can do different things with it (the role). We make decisions and we make up their entire life story and what makes them how they are. It’s fun to see how two different people can take a part in completely different directions.”
So if you watch what someone else does with the same role that you have, then you can get ideas and vice versa?
“You can see what works and what doesn’t,” Safarik says, “and [you can] see if there’s something that strikes you as something that you’d like to try. It’s fun to have someone else there to work off of, and you guys can exchange ideas.”
“The fun thing,” she points out, “is that each night will be a completely different performance. People can come twice and see something totally new.”
Now there’s a good salesperson for you, with a pretty convincing reason to make two trips to the table.
The Dining Room, directed by Luke Yankee and produced by Carol Mathews, is being performed by the Mira Costa Drama Department at 7:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, as well as next Thursday (Nov. 11), Friday (Nov. 12), and Saturday (Nov. 13), plus 2 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 13, in the Mira Costa High School Auditorium, 1401 Artesia Blvd., Manhattan Beach. Tickets, $12 general; $10 seniors, students. (310) 318-7337 ext. 5242, or go to miracostadramaboosters.org/web/tickets.html. ER
