host posted on October 12, 2011 11:05
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
CONTACT PERSON: JoAnn Evans, 956-943-4700
El Paseo Arts Serves Up Entertaining Fare with Neil Simon’s The Dinner Party
On October 25, 2011, El Paseo Arts Foundation plays host at the SPI Convention Center to the Camille Playhouse’s first production of the 2011-12 season. The lights go up on the stage at 7:30 p.m. to reveal a private dining room in an exclusive restaurant. Enter Claude Pichon (Anibal Villarreal, Jr.), antique bookseller with an indisputable air of savior faire. A second guest arrives, the awkward Albert Donay (Stephen Shull), a rental-car agency owner with a passion for creating abstract paintings of used automobiles. André Bouville (Matt Thom), an arrogant fashion entrepreneur completes the oddly matched trio, and, as the three men exchange barbs in “Simonesque” style repartee, they discover their one connection – they each had the same divorce lawyer. It is thus no surprise when the first female to arrive is Claude’s ex-wife Michele Levieux (Delyssa Castillo), a successful writer. She is followed quickly by Albert’s ex-wife, Yvonne Fouchet (Caty Wantland), as timid and insecure as her former husband. With the dramatic entrance of Gabrielle Buonocelli (Chalene Moskal) the puppet-master who has pulled the strings to bring to bring the strange and estranged group together, we discover the raison d’être for the gathering. Such is the set-up for The Dinner Party, a romantic farce with a bitter and sometimes sardonic edge that is the incomparable Neil Simon’s thirty-first play.
Neil Simon fans will find the play filled with the masterful comic dialogue and fast-paced repartee that are the trademarks of his plays; yet this show seems oddly different from other Simon comedies, the best of which are based on his life and experiences in the New York area. However, if one knows that Simon has been married five times and divorced three times (his first wife died), one begins to suspect that this sometimes brutal dissection of marriage and divorce may be his very personal exploration of the difficult and often painful relationships between men and women who love one another.
In The Dinner Party, Neil Simon serves up a bitter sweet fare of frequently hilarious comedy and dangerously serious drama, and when the final course is served it may leave you with a bit of heartburn. Nevertheless, as the New York Post said in their review of the play, it’s “an invitation you’ll be glad you accepted”.
Tickets for the production are $25 per person/$20 for El Paseo members and are available for purchase at the SPI Visitors Center, Paragraphs Book Store, Designer Consigner in Port Isabel and online at www.elpaseoarts.org.
El Paseo Arts Foundation is a 501(c)(3) not for profit organization with the mission to support and promote the arts in the lower Laguna Madre Area.