Review: Rollicking ‘Table 17’ at Geffen Playhouse
- Anita W. Harris
- 1 hour ago
- 3 min read
Sometimes you just want good entertainment without any heavy messaging to weigh it down. Enter “Table 17,” actor and playwright Douglas Lyons’ rollicking romantic comedy set in a restaurant with tables on stage and no fourth wall. Thanks to dynamic acting, lighting and sound, “Table 17” keeps the audience laughing in sympathy and recognition at one couple who meet up after a breakup.
Having premiered at New York’s MCC Theater and becoming a New York Times Critic’s Pick, “Table 17” is making its West Coast premiere at Geffen Playhouse’s Gil Cates Theater through Dec. 7. Featuring three amazing actors — one of them inhabiting multiple roles with aplomb — the play time-travels through a relationship, inviting the audience to react or chime in at every turn.
Dallas (Eiko Eisen-Martin) has invited Jada (Gail Bean) to meet at a restaurant two years after they broke off their engagement. The reasons why they’d called it off are revealed as the play goes back and forth in time, showing both behaving in questionable ways that they each try to explain or justify directly to us, sometimes specifically asking the guys or ladies of the audience to hear them out.
Such audience participation adds to the fun, especially when we either recognize ourselves or question whether we wouldn’t have done the same thing in the same circumstances. Making the play even more fun is Michael Rishawn in multiple roles, beginning with River, the restaurant’s sparkly-pink-boot wearing host and waiter with attitude.
The couple's restaurant meetup becomes a hilarious threesome as River interjects comments and opinions as Dallas and Jada catch up at their table. Rishawn later appears in a flashback as Eric — Jada’s flight attendant colleague who lures her with smooth lines and promises to be there when Dallas isn’t.
Rishawn also plays the hard-edged bartender at the club where Jada and Dallas had met years earlier, when she wore a miniskirt and Dallas thought he was rocking corduroys — which he still believes when they meet in the present.
We like this goofy and unassuming quality in Dallas, whom stage-veteran Eisen-Martin makes completely believable. Jada is similarly likeable, with the large eyes and cute snub nose of an Archie Comics character, though perhaps Bean’s television background sometimes interferes with her enunciation on stage.
But all three actors fully immerse themselves in their physically demanding, fast-paced roles, with frequent costume changes (designed by Devario D. Simmons) as they enact different times in the relationship.
Director Zhailon Levingston has the actors utilize the whole stage, including standing on top of the bar at the back. Quick lighting changes (designed by Ben Stanton) well-coordinated with snaps or clicks (sound design by Christopher Darbassie) signal the characters breaking out of the story to address the audience directly or interact with those seated at tables on stage.
Whether it’s because the audience becomes part of what the couple experiences in joy and heartache, or because we grow to like them so much, the ending hits home in a meaningful way, bringing us full circle to appreciate what every relationship has the potential to be.
“Table 17” continues through Dec. 7 at the Geffen Playhouse’s Gil Cates Theater, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Los Angeles, with shows Wednesdays and Thursdays at 7:30 p.m., Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 3 p.m. and 8 p.m., and Sundays at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. For tickets and information, call the box office at 310-208-2028 or visit GeffenPlayhouse.org. Run time is 85 minutes with no intermission.