‘Big Meal’ in Anaheim is a choice play to be savored
by Eric Marchese, Orange County Register
Movies easily compress entire life spans into the space of two hours, but can live theater do the same with actors in multiple, interchangeable roles without confusing the heck out of the audience?
Chance Theater’s Southern California premiere of “The Big Meal” does so, in stunning fashion, and in a mere 90 minutes.
Dan LeFranc’s smartly conceived, beautifully written snapshot of one couple, and the multigenerational family around them, premiered in Chicago in 2011 and, a year later, went to off-Broadway.
The universality of the play’s subject would afford any playwright a great deal of creative flexibility. The “hook,” or gimmick, LeFranc chooses is family mealtime – specifically, those occasions when family members gather in public, at a restaurant.
That setting, of a generic, unnamed popular chain eatery anywhere in the U.S. Midwest, creates the “Big Meal” through-line that’s our lens as we watch Sam and Nicole meet, become acquainted, date, fall in love, marry, start a family, and so forth.
It’s no spoiler to note that in the play’s closing minutes, the couple are in their twilight years, their kids mature adults with children of their own.
A routine handling of such a story would assign the two key roles to one male and one female performer, using makeup and costumes to show the effects of aging. In depicting not just Sam and Nicki but all his characters, LeFranc uses eight actors – two children, two twentysomethings, two mature adults, and two seniors.
With less accomplished writing, direction and acting, “The Big Meal” could have been little more than a theatrical stunt. But LeFranc’s ingenious script works as an inspired blueprint for director Jocelyn A. Brown and a cast of admirably talented, notably versatile thespians.
As the young adult Sam, Ben Green charmingly waffles when Sam asks Nicole out on a date. Angela Griswold keeps a cool, impersonal exterior as Nicki, asserting she has no interest in any kind of a commitment, let alone marriage and children.
Without revealing any spoilers, let’s just say the couple isn’t a couple for a while, meeting back up a few years later. From this point on, Robert Foran and Jennifer Ruckman essay Sam and Nicki as mature adults navigating the rocky shoals of raising children, dealing with aging parents and contending with possible infidelity.
The main course of “The Big Meal” is that focal Sam-Nicki relationship and everything in its orbit. Their family is constantly evolving, through romances, marriages, anniversaries, separations, divorces, births and deaths, all viewed through the lens of public family gatherings that are sometimes more public than is comfortable for the family’s individual members.
We see the couple’s kids grow from childhood (with Dylan Barton as Robbie and Abby Lutes as Maddie) to teens and young adults (Green and Griswold) who start dating, coupling up and having kids of their own (Barton and Lutes again).
Karen Webster and David Carl Golbeck are first seen as the mature Sam’s aging mom and dad. Eventually, “The Big Meal” completes the circle of life, with Webster and Golbeck as the now graying Nicki and Sam whose grandkids are the same age as they were at first meet and whose offspring are the couple’s great-grandchildren.
LeFranc has a keen ear for natural sounding dialogue and a discerning eye for life’s adversities. The result is a collection of loosely sketched characters whose family bonds carry more weight than the traits and quirks of any one individual – and a play likely to warm your heart while evoking a chuckle or a wave of sadness.
Without ever evoking the word “dysfunction,” LeFranc shows that where any family is concerned, painful remarks and squabbling are normal – as is an acceptance of flaws that’s alternately exasperated and affectionate.
The kind of shape-shifting “The Big Meal” demands isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, whether actor or audience. Brown has assembled eight performers who obviously relish the challenges the script poses. Their enjoyment makes the Chance’s production something to be savored.
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