See Hampton Theatre Company's 'Don’t Dress for Dinner' in Quogue
Marc Camoletti’s comedy Don’t Dress for Dinner, adapted from the original French by Robin Hawdon, opens as the fourth and final play of the Hampton Theatre Company’s (HTC) 2017-2018 season on Thursday, May 24. The play will run at Quogue Community Hall, Thursdays–Sundays, through June 10.
This wildly hilarious play is all about illicit relationships, deceit and affairs of the heart.
With his wife Jacqueline scheduled to visit her mother, British ex-pat Bernard has invited his chic mistress Suzanne to spend the weekend at his converted farmhouse outside Paris. He has arranged for a Cordon Bleu chef to cook for them and has also invited his best friend Robert as a suitable alibi. What could possibly go wrong?
For starters, unknown to Bernard, Robert and Jacqueline are secret lovers and are determined that Jacqueline will not leave for the weekend—the cook has to pretend she is Bernard’s mistress while his actual mistress, now relegated to the kitchen, is unable to cook. Preposterous alibis and explanations begin to pile up—and then the chef’s homicidal husband comes calling. In an evening of outrageous confusion, Bernard, Jacqueline and Robert are all forced to improvise at breakneck speed.
Camoletti’s original version of the play was a hit when it first opened in Paris, running for two years. The Robin Hawdon adaptation ran for six years and more than 2,000 performances in London in the 1990s. Among the many rave reviews, Chicago Style Magazine wrote Don’t Dress for Dinner was “two of the most rib-tickling hilarious hours I have spent in the theatre in some time.”
The cast of “Don’t Dress for Dinner” features five HTC veterans and one newcomer to the Quogue stage. Andrew Botsford and Rosemary Cline play Bernard and his wife Jacqueline; Matthew Conlon has the role of Robert; Rebecca Edana is Suzanne; and Amanda Griemsmann plays the chef, Suzette.
Making his debut in Quogue, Sam Yarabek plays Suzette’s husband, George, while HTC veteran director and actor George A. Loizides directs.
Performances of Don’t Dress for Dinner runs at the Quogue Community Hall from May 24 to June 10 with shows on Thursdays and Fridays at 7 p.m., Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2:30 p.m. An additional matinee performance will be offered during the final weekend of the production, on Saturday, June 9, prior to the regular 8 p.m. performance that evening.
To reserve tickets, visit hamptontheatre.org, or call OvationTix at 1-866-811-4111.