The Dining Room (Masterplots II: Drama)
At a glance:
- Author: A. R. Gurney, Jr.
- First Published: 1982
- Type of Work: Comedy
- Time of Work: From the 1930’s to the 1980’s
- Setting: A dining room
- Principal Characters: Fifty-Seven Characters
- Genres: Drama, Comedy
- Subjects: 1950’s, Values, 1960’s, 1970’s, Family or family life, United States or Americans, Tradition, 1940’s, 1930’s, 1980’s, Servants, WASPs, Furniture, Dinners or dining
- Locales: Northeast (U.S.)
The Play
The Dining Room is a two-act play consisting of eighteen overlapping and unrelated vignettes, all staged in an elegant dining room. It traces, through the course of a day’s activities in the lives of various families, the struggles and conflicts within upper-middle-class American homes from the Depression to the 1980’s. The first act, composed of eleven vignettes, begins at early morning with a realtor showing the room to a prospective buyer. From this brief sketch the action segues quickly to the entrance of Arthur and Sally, adult brother and sister, who...
[The entire page is 2587 words long]
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