Minding Our "Manners"

Here's this family's rule: unyielding gentility. They are all together for the first time since Christmas, and never mind that this is creating some strain. They’ll sort it all out. Sarah will see to it.

Sarah and her husband Reg are here for the weekend to relieve Annie, Reg’s younger sister and caretaker for their invalid mother, who lives upstairs and “hasn’t been down for weeks.” They’ve agreed to look after the old lady while Annie goes away for the weekend, hopefully with Tom. Tom is the community’s mild veterinarian, and he looks after their cat. A weekend with Tom, says Sarah, would be “very sensible.” But Annie has made other plans, and now Norman, their scapegrace brother-in-law, has been seen on the premises. Could this possibly be Annie’s weekend companion -- her sister Ruth’s husband? Sarah will have none of it. She summons Ruth to the house.

But all these extra people plus Tom, who comes by to look in on the cat, make six for dinner, and there’s not enough food, wine or chairs to go around. Still, dinner must go on, and they rise to their respective duties. Annie compiles a “sloppy stew” of all the canned goods in the house and fills that out with leftover salad. (“This lettuce leaf is all mine, then, is it?”) Tom will take the short chair the cat sleeps on, and Norman will “dress for dinner,” in an old suit that had belonged to his taller late father-in-law. Sarah’s seating assignments and the family’s compliance with them reveals playwright Alan Ayckbourn at his artfully snarky best.

Ayckbourn’s people are hysterically tragic or tragically comic, and always emotionally chaotic. The playwright has produced seventy-five full-length plays. This one, “Table Manners,” was the thirteenth, and the first in his “Norman Conquests” series. It has been playing in one location or another almost constantly since its premiere in 1973. In 2009, the Old Vic Company in London brought the “Norman Conquests” to Broadway, where they captured a Tony for Best Revival. (Norman conquers by promising happiness. It works every time.)

Ross Valley Players’ director, Robert Wilson, understands Ayckbourn’s pacing. The table-seating scene – though originally performed in the round – works beautifully with two of the players unconventionally having their backs turned to the audience. The actors’ accents are entirely unforced, for which Wilson credits his Associate Director, Judy Holmes, and her “British sensibilities.”

Joseph Hoeber, now of Tiburon and recently of New York, has the plum role of Norman. Hoeber’s Norman is unkempt and demanding, drinks too much, apologizes for drinking too much, and is altogether as irritating as a mosquito in the bedroom. Reg, Ruth’s brother (Robin Schild) confides that he does like Norman, but thinks most women don’t. However, Reg is not entirely observant and has been known to forget his own children’s names.

Monique Sims, another Tiburon talent, plays the duty-bound Annie, carrying on even though Sarah lets her know that her hair “looks like a gorse bush.” Robyn Wiley is the unflappable Ruth, a hard-pressed, but short-sighted professional. Christopher Hammond portrays Tom, the dedicated veterinarian and possible hero, with Pamela Ciochetti as Sarah, who maintains order, but still gets “relapses of nervous trouble” whenever she’s been in the house.

David Apple’s country dining room is exactly right, but also slightly askew, and Bruce Viera’s sound intervals are almost as much fun as the show.

“Table Manners” will play at The Barn Theatre in Ross through August 14. Ticket prices range from $15 to $25. For reservations, call 456-9555, and for complete information see www.rossvalleyplayers.com.